


Melted Wax

by nimiumcaelo



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, NaNoWriMo 2017, fantasy/supernatural
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 20:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13061505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimiumcaelo/pseuds/nimiumcaelo
Summary: Two girls accidentally summon a demon and release a soul from the Pit. After joining forces with an angel, will they be able to get the Lost Soul back in time, or will the wrath of Heaven descend upon them?(Written for NaNoWriMo 2017, and while I have no real plans on finishing this, I will if I'm asked.)





	1. The Story Begins

The cool October rain falls melodically on the roof of the museum. A girl stands in front of a painting, her eyes not on the Monet but on the bluish screen in front of her face. She taps out a message and hits 'send,' then walks coolly to the next room, one full of Egyptian funeral decorations. The air inside is about sixty degrees Fahrenheit and the girl pulls her loose cardigan closer about her shoulders. While walking, her shoes don't mar the glassy reflectiveness of the floor tiles. The walls are a not-quite-sterile off-white.

A man comes up behind her. He is older, black, wearing a Chicago Cubs baseball hat and boat shoes. A bristly grey chevron mustache hangs about on his upper lip as if it came for a cup of coffee before dinner when he was around thirty and hasn't bothered to leave since. The girl turns to glance at the man as he steps beside her, admiring the gold engravings before them both. The girl shoves her phone in the back pocket of her jeans and adopts an aloof air that ties the end of her chin to a balloon. The man waits for a moment, then moves on to the next exhibit.

The girl stands in front of the sculpture of a walking man for several minutes after moving through the Egyptian section and heading down the hallway to things more modern. She admires the gloppy way that the man is almost stacked on top of himself as he takes his gargantuan steps. The dark brown finish reflects the overhead lighting and the man appears to glow. The girl snaps a picture of it and then leaves to head back downstairs.

Passing through the double glass doors, the girl heads down Forbes avenue until she gets to a little grotto sort of area with benches just in the shadow of the Cathedral of Learning. She sits down on one of the benches and pulls out her phone, texting someone to meet her there. Then, she waits, slipping one of her ear buds in her ears and turning up her music. Fats Domino croons sweet words and she feels some of her anxiety abate.

About five minutes after she sends the text, she looks up and gives a tiny smile to another girl about her age who walks over, coming not from the sidewalk but from the vast green lawn between where the girl is sitting and the library behind them both.

  


***

  


"Did you bring the colored pencils?"

"Yeah, don't worry, I've got it all covered."

"But did you bring them?"

" _Yes,_ I brought them. Why do you even need them, though? It's not like anyone will care if this stuff is color-coded."

"I care. And you should, too. Organization is very important."

"Alright, boss, whatever you say."

"Don't call me 'boss.'"

"Alright, _Maggie_ ."

"Don't call me that, either."

The two girls were seated in a Starbucks, at a table, with two lattes in front of them – one a pumpkin spice and the other a chai with soy milk. A map of the city was spread out on the table and Maggie was copying locations from her phone onto the map with different colored pencils. The other girl was leaning her seat back and sipping at her drink – the chai – while idly watching her partner's actions.

"You better hurry up or we'll miss Jake's presentation," said the Chai Drinker.

"I don't care; I'm not going."

"What do you mean you're not going? It's important."

"For you."

The Chai Drinker scowled and leaned her chair forward until the feet hit the floor with a click. Maggie kept her eyes firmly on the map she was editing.

"Look, it doesn't even matter that much to me, okay? I just told him I'd be there and I didn't want to screw this up."

"Okay. Fine," chirped Maggie, seemingly unaffected by all of this as she circled buildings with a dark blue pencil.

"You don't  _sound_ like it's fine."

"Emma, please," Maggie finally turned away from the map. Emma was leaning towards her, elbows resting on the table. Maggie's gaze was a touch on the hard side of firm. "I'm working."

Emma took a decisive sip of her latte and stared out the window. The rain had let up about an hour ago but the pavement was still wet and near-glassy. Several cars rolled past and the chatter inside the Starbucks drowned out the sound of their tires on the asphalt. Emma reached in her pocket and pulled out an e-cigarette.

"I snuck this off the guy who was following you last week. Thought you might like it."

"Why?" Maddie asked, genuinely confused.

"Because I thought you liked that sort of thing."

"I don't  _like_ vapes, I just prefer them to regular cigarettes. The normal ones stink."

"Oh. Never mind, then."

Silence reigned for a moment or two. Maggie blinked, then considered.

"Emma."

"Hm?" Emma didn't look at Maggie, but kept her head angled over the point of her shoulder, gaze aimed at the coffee shop door where several patrons were exiting with steaming beverages.

"Look."

Emma turned and regarded the finished map. Maggie was smiling at her and Emma smiled back.  
"Let's go catch Jake's speech."

  


The two girls pushed out the doors of the Starbucks, their cooling drinks in hand, and made their way up Fifth avenue. They turned left, down the hill, and walked past the university dorms and down into more academic buildings. Pausing at a crosswalk, Emma observed a young father with his two daughters walk into Dunkin Donuts. The light changed and Maggie nudged her partner with her elbow.

As they made their way into the building where Jake's speech was to be given, the rain started up again in a soft drizzle. Maggie ran a hand over her hair to smooth the droplets off and they pulled off their jackets as they jogged up the stairs to the third floor. The elevator was broken down temporarily.

"Excuse me, I'll need to see your admission."

A man – security guard, mid-forties – stopped Maggie with a hand on her shoulder before she could walk into the auditorium. She pulled a folded piece of paper that she'd printed off her computer the night before out of her pocket and handed it to him.

"I get a plus one," she remarked, gesturing at Emma, who was scratching at her cheek.

"Alright, looks good. Enjoy the presentations."

The guard handed Maggie back her admission ticket and the two girls walked into the back of the auditorium. They sat down by the edge of one of the rows and stood up a moment later to let an older couple past. The lights dimmed and a woman in a pencil skirt walked to the center of the stage.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen." Emma scoffed quietly. "I'd like to call your attention to the programs you should have been handed as you walked in." Maggie looked at Emma. Emma held her hands up to show she did not have a program. Maggie sighed and crossed her arms.

  


***

  


An older man wearing a Chicago Cubs baseball hat glanced up from the map on the wall of the subway station. As he frowned his mustache curved into a sort of pyramid before snapping back into place as the man pursed his lips and moved away. The screech of the subway dragged abrasively through his ears. A baby was crying as its mother attempted to comfort it while texting rapidly on her iPhone 6 plus. Another man walked up, clad in an English suit with a slightly rumpled handkerchief gripped in his right hand, a business card in his left. The Suit Man walked up to the Chicago Cubs Man. There was a brief commotion as Cubs Man turned around just as Suit Man walked up to him, causing Suit Man to have to put a hand out to Cubs Man to steady himself. Suit Man apologized profusely and Cubs Man told him it didn't matter. Suit Man then walked away, handkerchief in right hand and left hand empty. Cubs Man discretely left to the men's room, a small business card tucked away in the palm of his hand.

  


***

  


Maggie was hunched over in her seat, the brightness level on her phone turned all the way down. She dragged through several text conversations she had had over the past few weeks. Emma leaned casually against the armrest between the two of the them, her cheek resting against her fist. As she waited for Jake to come up to the stage, her eyes flicked between the program she could just barely make out as the man seated in front of her examined it and Maggie's screen. She checked to make sure no one was watching them.

"You know you're not supposed to be on your phone right now," Emma whispered.

Maggie shrugged a disinterested shoulder. "So?"

Emma rolled her eyes and let her gaze slide away. The man-in-front-of-her turned the page before Emma was done reading it and Emma felt a momentary flash of contempt for the man who was able to read faster in the low light than she was able to. Someone several rows in front of them coughed. 

"This isn't what I necessarily imagined when I suggested we come here," Emma huffed near-silently to Maggie after the third Philosophy major came forward to propose their newest findings. According to the man-in-front-of-her's program, Jake was in the penultimate slot, just before the department chair was supposed to speak. Maggie didn't respond. Emma nudged her with her elbow.

"Maggie."

The addressed gave a small start and turned towards Emma with a surprised expression on her face.

"What? I'm working."

"Well, quit working. I'm trying to talk to you. Geez."

Maggie narrowed her eyes. "What do you want to talk about that's so important that it can't wait?"

"Oh, I don't know, comments on the current situation. Why is your work so important that you can't let it wait?"

"Emma, you were there. You  _know_ why."

"You can wait two seconds while I say something."

Maggie opened her mouth to speak but was silenced by an usher moving away from the door and asking the two of them to be quiet or move their conversation out of the auditorium. Emma moved to get up, but Maggie stopped her with a hand on her arm and a harsh stare. Emma sat back down.

Maggie slid her cardigan off of her shoulders and draped it over Emma's. Emma, who had been scowling at nothing in particular, let her gaze soften and put her arms in the sleeves of the sweater. Maggie didn't look at her, but she could tell Emma had become less discontent. Maggie turned back to her phone.

**Michael White [14:46 10/28]:** _Are you two coming later to my game?_

 **You [14:48 10/28]:** _No sorry we have homework_

 **Michael White [14:48 10/28]:** _Wow what an excuse_

 **You [14:49 10/28]:** _Shut up Mike I'm busy_

 **Michael White [14:50 10/28]:** _Is Emma busy?_

 **You [14:51 10/28]:** _Yes_

 **You [14:51 10/28]:** _We're both very busy_

 **Michael White [14:52 10/28]:** _Ugh you're no fun_

 **You [14:53 10/28]:** _Maybe next time?_

 **Michael White [14:52 10/28]:** _Yeah no never inviting you two again god_

 **Michael White [14:53 10/28]:** _Get some new friends if you wanna keep screwing people over Maggie_

Maggie blinked several times at the message and typed several responses, deleting them all before hitting the 'send' button. She mutely handed her phone over to Emma, who read the conversation with knit brows. Emma handed the phone back with a sympathetic glance.

Philosophy Student #3 stepped down off the platform amidst mediocre applause and Philosophy Student #4 passed him on the steps up before shuffling his notes and clearing his throat.

"Now, you're probably very tired of hearing me and my fellow Philosophy majors ramble on to you about ideas."

A general murmur in the crowd seemed to vaguely lean to the affirmative.

"Well, don't worry, because I've got a rather more interesting idea to put forth to you than the previous three speakers."

Maggie rolled her eyes.

"See, what I'm planning on talking to you about is something you've probably heard a lot about, but that you've probably not thought about for much yet today. What I'm going to talk to you about is," the young man paused a beat for dramatic intensity. "Hell."

Most of the crowd gave a soft sort of chuckle. Maggie, however, nearly dropped her phone and grabbed quickly onto Emma's wrist, eyes glued to the Philosophy student on the stage.

"As a sort of preface to my discussion, I'd like to point out that the instances of the exact word 'Hell' in the Bible – or at least in all English translations I've found – is relatively limited. The three instances where it is mentioned with exactly that word are Matthew five twenty-two, where it is stated that – and I'm using the King James Version, by the  way -- ' That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger . . . of hell fire.'" The young man paused, clicking his slides ahead to a list of the Biblical references he was using. He cleared his throat. "Now, in the English Standard, that's translated more like the "Hell of fire" but that's unimportant for my argument, just thought I'd mention it. The next instance is in Matthew chapter ten, verse twenty-eight." He paused. "It's basically a call for believers to not fear other people, animals – created things, basically – because they can only kill the body and God's people should, rather, fe ar 'him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell,' basically, God. The final instance of the word H-E-double hockey sticks" (someone chuckles) "is in James three, verse six; though to get the whole picture of what's being described one must go back a bit to verse three, where it says – now this is King James, again – that 'we put bits in the horses' mouths, that they may obey us; and we turn about their whole body,' and then in verse four it says that we guide ships, that are 'driven of fierce winds,' with such a tiny helm. Then James ties his idea together by saying that the tongue of man is like these things, and that it is 'set on fire by hell.'"

  


***

  


August.

In a dusty sort of house, in the living room, with a couch that had seen the same behind so many times as to have conformed its cushions to that shape, a television at least twenty years old, and a lukewarm beer can from the night before, an old man sat, lightly crumpled like a plush toy with stuffing removed. He had in his hands a picture frame, faintly greyed and containing two faces, one of which was not his own. With his finger, he traced a little circle in the grease covering the glass of the picture frame. The air conditioner hummed in the background and the man's shoulders found themselves underneath several pounds of grievances yet again.

In the street outside the house, some children were yelling and, ostensibly, playing with a slightly deflated basketball. One of the larger kids, a boy of about fourteen, pulled the ball away from a smaller boy, causing the littler one to stumble forwards and start shouting. He was drowned out by the thundering steps of carefully-cleaned sneakers pounding the pavement as the older ones ran to the hoop set up on some neighbor's garage door. The younger one sat down on the curb, and sighed. He had a deep scowl that looked too old for his face and hands that shouldn't have been quite so calloused yet. The old man pulled his gingham curtains over the window.

  


***

  


The young man up on the stage walked back and forth, gesticulating as if in frustration that he could not simply drag his consciousness out and have all gaze upon it so that his ideas might flow forth without confusion or misinterpretation. Emma covertly checked all the exits and confirmed that two of them were blocked by seats or people, and the remaining three were open and ready to be used in the event of an emergency. Keeping a wince off of her face with no small amount of effort, Emma patted Maggie's clamp-like hand on her wrist.

"I think he's almost done, quit fretting."

Maggie didn't take her eyes off the man on the stage. "What's Jake presenting about?"

"I don't – I don't know. Check the email."

"What email?"

"Didn't I forward one to you? My account hasn't been working great lately. Here," Emma gently released Maggie's phone from the latter's firm grip and looked through Maggie's inbox. "Huh. I guess you didn't get it."

Emma pulled out her own phone and checked the emails while Maggie's attention was fixed on the amplified sound of the speaker's voice coming through the sound system of the auditorium. He sounded enthusiastic, a little nervous, but mostly with that arrogant belief in his own intellectual superiority and reasoning ability that characterizes most philosophy majors.

"'And he seized the dragon' – that is, the devil – 'and threw him into the pit.'"

Maggie's vision tunneled somewhat and she felt disoriented as she turned towards Emma, who poked her gently in the side.

"He's presenting on immigrants or something. Like, the 'us-or-them' mentality or some stuff like that. Nothing huge."

"Okay."

Emma gave Maggie a look that was a little weird but mostly concerned. Maggie exhaled briefly and then released her grip on Emma's arm.

"You good?"

"Yeah, no, I'm fine," Maggie asserted, pretending as if she hadn't just acted very strange. 

The young man up on the stage was finishing up. He asked for questions. Maggie stood up. One of the presentation assistants walked up to her and held a microphone up for her to speak into.

"Yes, I was wondering about what you said with Hell being formed from Lucifer falling from Heaven to Earth."

The young man nodded.

"You see, if Lucifer fell before humanity did, would it not the sin and the Fall of all of Creation really be his fault? If Lucifer was the first to fall and, if we take Revelation to be interpreted in such a way, dragged a third of the angels down with him, wouldn't that have  _caused_ Adam and Eve's sin? And wouldn't their sin not be the Original Sin, but rather a consequence of Lucifer's Original Sin?"

The young man was silent for a moment as the crowd started in hushed murmurs.

"That's a very good question. Unfortunately, it is impossible for me to answer that question without dragging in my own religious views and I don't think that would be appropriate in this type of discussion –"

"Oh, I don't mind," Maggie interrupted, holding the microphone closer to her after the assistant tried to move it away. "Just give whatever answer you can."

The young man hesitated, then relented. "Alright, well – Lucifer cannot have committed the original sin because, according to several passages in Genesis I'm sure you're familiar with, humans are the ones created in God's image and placed at the head of all of Creation. Angels are powerful, much more powerful than humans, but they don't head Creation – that's humanity's job. Lucifer may have been the first, but he certainly wasn't the most important to fall. Does that answer your question?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Of course. Anyone else?"

A child wanted to ask some question about what demons looked like. The young man answered thoughtfully, though patronizingly, and then ended his presentation. Jake was slotted next, and his name was called. Emma perked up in her seat, eager to see him.

  



	2. A Bit of a Flashback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter the demon.

The evening was warm, sultry even, and, in a cabin in the woods, about forty miles from the city, two girls, absentmindedly scratching at their mosquito bites, sat together on a bed with a Ouija board between them.  
"I hope you know this is absolute garbage," Maddie said scornfully. "There are much easier ways to contact demons and things than this."  
"Oh yeah? Like what?" Emma pushed the board away and squinted at Maddie in the faint light.  
Their cabin was located rather farther from the center of camp than the others and they were able to talk for much longer into the night than their fellow campers.  
"Have you ever tried an intention ceremony?"  
"A what now?"  
"An intention ceremony. I'm not entirely certain how it works but I'm pretty sure you just sit in a circle, hold hands, and invite the demon to come."  
"Well do you invite a specific demon or just whatever one happens to pick up the phone?"  
"If you use a specific name, then you get a specific one."  
"Okay..." Emma eyed Maggie warily. "Do you have a list or something?"  
Maggie looked a little put-out. "No, I didn't bother. But I've got a couple I remember."  
"What are they?"  
"You can't just say a demon's name."  
"Why not?" Emma carded her fingers through her hair. She was a little tired and what started as a fun little joke was getting to be just a bit too serious for her liking.  
"Because then they have power over you."  
"Oh, come on, Maggie, that's stupid."  
"Hey, I don't make the rules." Maggie held her hands up in mock-surrender. "Just don't say these out loud unless you actually want one of them to arrive."  
Emma blinked at her as she started typing out the demon names on her phone's notes. Maggie suddenly looked up, very serious. "Do you promise not to say these out loud?"  
Emma sighed. "Yes, fine, whatever."  
"Emma," warned Maggie. "This is serious."  
"Look, I don't even believe in God. This is ridiculous."  
"Just say it, please."  
"Fine. I promise not to say the demon names out loud."  
"Thank you."  
"You're welcome."  
Maggie handed her phone to Emma, who scrolled, unamused, through the list.  
"Are these serious?"  
"Yep."  
"You gotta be kidding me. There's no way there's a demon called Amy –"  
Maggie's hand hit Emma's face just a moment too late. They stared at each other with wide-eyes and rapidly-beating hearts.  
"You promised," hissed Maggie, enraged and terrified, as the faint light coming through the windows dimmed. Emma felt her stomach drop but tried to play it down with an unaffected air.  
"Hey, don't worry," Emma started out, peeling Maggie's hand off her mouth. "It's probably just a cloud."  
"A cloud." Maggie repeated, not getting the gist.  
"Yeah, like, over the moon. That's what made it get darker. Nothing spooky or whate --"  
A large boom as of thunder rattled the windowpanes. Suddenly, they couldn't even see the leaves just on the tree just outside the window; it looked as if someone had painted the windows with black paint. Maggie and Emma clutched at each other, too scared to be embarrassed.  
Suddenly, a deep voice started chuckling ominously, the sound coming from all around them and impossible to pinpoint.  
"Okay, maybe this isn't all that stupid," Emma squeaked.  
A flash of lightning struck the center of the cabin floor, just two or three feet in front of the girls. They felt the heat of it singe the tips of their noses and the smell of burnt hair flooded the room. Then, rising from a swirling black haze about an inch off the floor, appeared the demon – Amy.  
"Cower before me, humans!" Amy cried, arms raised threateningly above her head.  
Maggie blinked. "Why?"  
Amy was about five foot three, blonde, and didn't look very fit. Her scowl, however, deepened as she heard Maggie's doubts and she stomped over to the girl.  
"Because I am a demon!" She emphasized the last word with a toss of her hands skyward. "And humans are terrified of demons!"  
"Well, yes," started Maggie. "But usually the demons are a little scarier to begin with."  
Emma smirked. "You can't honestly believe we're scared of you. I mean, you're about five inches shorter than I am."  
"So?" Amy retorted, chin up and hands on her hips. "I'm older than any of your civilizations and I could smite you with the tip of my little finger." She held up her pinky finger.  
Maggie and Emma were terribly unimpressed.  
"Okay, well, whatever," Maggie said. "Just, tell us something, I guess?"  
Amy folded her arms. "What do you want to know?"  
"You got anything about the cute guys in cabin eleven?" Emma joked.  
"Yes."  
"Wait, really?" Maggie asked.  
"Yeah, actually, I do. The one's planning on joining the Marines and the other's gay and hiding it from his dad."  
Emma and Maggie shared a look.  
"Okay," Emma started. "But, like, anything useful about them?"  
"Isn't that what you wanted to know?" Amy squinted her eyes.  
"Not exactly," said Maggie. "See, we're trying to get them back in this prank war all over camp. I know the one guy's allergic to seafood, and the other's scared of snakes. But we probably shouldn't mess with Allergy Guy, I mean, unless we want to face possible legal action."  
"They'd sue us for that?"  
"They'd sue you for that?"  
"Unfortunately, yes," Maggie admitted darkly.  
"That sucks," Amy offered, sitting down on the other bed. "Anything I can do to help you guys out with that?"  
"That's exactly what we wanted to know."  
"Okay, sweet," grinned Amy, clapping her hands together. "Forget cowering, I haven't done this sort of thing in – in – oh, it's gotta be at least a thousand years. Look, I've got the ultimate prank, okay: I'll take you two down to Hell --"  
"You'll what?!" exclaimed Maggie.  
"Take you two down to Hell – now, while we're there --"  
"Now, hold on just a minute," Maggie interrupted, raising her hand. "We aren't going down to Hell."  
"Why not?"  
"Well, can't humans never get back from there?"  
"No."  
"What, really?"  
"Yeah, no – if you're escorted by a demon or an angel or whatever you can get back out."  
"Seriously? Sweet. Sorry, continue."  
Amy adjusted herself on the bed, pulling up her legs and sitting Indian style.  
"Okay, so down in Hell there are these really nasty flowers – like, seriously nasty – and they look super pretty but the second you smell them you start itching all over and you get this pox all over your face like black acne."  
"Wicked," grinned Emma.  
"I propose that we go down there, grab a couple of these flowers – without smelling them, of course – and bring 'em back for our pretty boys down in cabin eleven. Sound good?"  
Maggie looked at Emma. "I'm fine with it."  
"So am I."  
"Cool," said Amy, standing up. "Shall we then?"  
Amy offered her arms to the girls, who took them somewhat giddily.  
"We're going to Hell with a demon," Emma thought wildly. "We're going to Hell with a demon."

***

A black man, middle-aged, with a Chicago Cubs baseball hat on, sits waiting for the bus by the library. The sky above him is dark, but it doesn't touch his mood. In his hands are two things: a cheaply wrapped present and a card written with a borrowed pen and shoved hastily into the envelope. The card is gaudy with a bright sparkly SEVEN written across the front and, when you open it, a tinny chorus of voices sings "Happy Birthday to You." The man doesn't look around as he sits, but rather keeps his eyes focused on a dandelion growing in the cracks of the sidewalk. A fly walks brazenly up his trouser leg, but the man doesn't bother about it.  
The bus arrives quietly and no one moves to get out. The man with the Chicago Cubs hat on stands stiffly and walks up to the bus, the double-doors opening with a small squeak. The man puts the envelope in his other hand and grabs onto the handle, pulling himself up onto the step. He walks into the bus, nodding at the driver and sitting down in the middle, somewhat near the front. A fat woman is across from him, playing with a baby on her lap. The Cubs man nods at her and then fixes his gaze forward.  
The bus pulls away from the curb.

***

Amy's hair flows backwards as she opens the portal to Hell. It appears as a dark pit in the floorboards, and upon closer inspection contains a rickety spiral staircase with peeling black paint.  
"Looks kinda cheap," remarked Emma idly.  
Amy, the two girls in tow, stepped up to the edge of the Pit. "You guys ready?"  
They exchange glances warily.  
"As I'll ever be."  
"Cool. Now, it'll be best if you don't look down."  
"Why?" Maggie queried.  
"You'll see."  
Amy lifted a foot, about to place it on the top of the staircase, but then changed direction at the last moment and stepped off the edge. They fell.  
Emma was screaming.  
"Could you shut up?!" Maggie yelled, eyes firmly screwed shut.  
"No!" Emma responded, nearly hysterical. She had always been afraid of heights.  
Emma glanced upwards and noticed that the opening that they'd come through had closed off. When she looked down, all she saw was a red dot growing ever larger with each passing second.  
Amy seemed unaffected by this, and Emma chafed not a small amount.  
"Are you crazy?! We could have taken the stairs!"  
"No, they weren't wide enough for all three of us," Amy replied calmly, hair whipping around her in a halo.  
"So?! Haven't you ever heard of single-file?!"  
"That's no fun, though. It would have taken us at least an hour. This is much quicker."  
"You mean falling?!"  
"Yes, now quit shouting in my ear or I'll smite you."  
Emma scowled. Maggie was simply clutching at Amy's arm and shoulder for dear life, muttering things to herself as they fell. Emma looked down again and noticed that the red dot had grown to about the size of a basketball.  
"Hey, won't we crash?"  
"Depends on whether I can slow us down first."  
"Oh, my gosh," Emma groaned. "Just let me die normally." She closed her eyes in anguish and could feel only the tickly brush of Amy's hair on her face and the faint flutter of the air around them as they fell. Suddenly, Amy jerked upwards as if caught on a cable and Emma and Maggie nearly lost their grips. Amy slipped an arm around each of them and slowed their descent to a nice, easy drift so they could step down onto the ground beneath them: a gravelly stone somewhat reminiscent of beaches up in northern Canada.  
Maggie let her eyes open finally, and when she did she gave a small start.  
"Woah."  
Amy grinned. "I know, right? They look pretty epic."  
The demon had wings emerging from between her shoulder blades. They were thin and faintly opaque, as if the skin had been stretched too far. Three or four bony appendages ran through them as in bat wings, but there was no sense of dexterity. Maggie tapped Emma on the shoulder.  
"Check it out, dude."  
"Ooh," commented Emma verbosely.  
"Okay," Amy folded her wings in, suddenly fidgety. "Quit ogling me, we gotta get moving."  
The two girls apologized and followed Amy to another staircase, this one metal but the same eery black color that was a little darker than necessary. Putting their hands on the edge of the rocky wall to their right, they stepped ever deeper and felt the air become ever warmer beneath them.  
"So," Amy started after several minutes of stair-descending. "You guys wanna hear a joke?"  
"Uh," Maggie looked over her shoulder at Emma. "I guess? What do you got?"  
"Every flavor and variety of dirty joke you could ever think of."  
"Of course a demon would only know dirty jokes," muttered Emma, carefully avoiding a pile of dark red glop that she hoped wasn't blood.  
"Hey! They're funny!"  
Emma flushed, embarrassed. "Doesn't matter. They're still gross."  
"What do you mean, 'they're gross?' Dirty jokes are the bomb, man – if you get them, that is." There was a tilt to her voice that sounded too mocking for Emma's liking. She straightened somewhat and bristled.  
"I do get them –"  
"Guys, guys," Maggie interrupted. "It doesn’t matter, geez. Here, I'll tell a joke, okay?"  
"Fine," consented Amy grudgingly.  
"Thank you. Now," Maggie paused, thinking. She took several steps down. "Oh, right: did you hear about the mathematician who was scared of negative numbers?"  
Amy and Emma mumbled, "No."  
"He would stop at nothing to avoid them."  
"Okay?" Amy offered, confused.  
"He would stop at nothing to avoid them," Maggie repeated, more emphatically this time.  
"Still don't get it."  
Emma sighed. "He was afraid of negative numbers so he's stop at nothing -- as in, zero -- to avoid them. Get it now?"  
"Oooooh," Amy chuckled. "Yeah, I get it now. Cute."  
"Thanks," said Maggie briskly.  
The air was becoming a little too warm for the two human girls, though Amy appeared unaffected, as usual. Maggie noticed sweat collecting in her palm as she slid it along the wall to steady herself. They were quiet for a few minutes, then Emma spoke.  
"Hey, how long does it take to get down here? Geez."  
"Oh, we're nearly there. Just, like, a few more levels and we'll be in the First Circle."  
"The First Circle?"  
"What, you didn't think all the Sinners are collected together, did you?"  
"Well, yeah," Emma admitted, suddenly embarrassed without knowing why. "Aren't they?"  
"Lord no, that'd be a right mosh pit."  
"Isn't it already?" Maggie asked mildly.  
"No, actually. You'd think it is, but we've got it pretty well controlled down here usually."  
"Usually?" Emma balked.  
"Quit worrying!" Amy called, stepping off the bottom of the staircase and onto a dark platform that appeared to be made of shards of black glass.  
"Geez," Maggie commented, stepping cautiously on the glass. "Glad I was wearing my slippers."  
Amy and Maggie walked about five-hundred yards before noticing Emma was missing. Maggie turned around and called to her.  
"Hey, Emma! Quit stalling, come on!"  
"I don't have any shoes, idiot!" Emma shouted back, perched nervously on the bottom step of the staircase.  
"Wait, really?" Maggie asked, walking back towards her. "Here, climb on my back."  
"You kidding?"  
"Nah, man, I got you. You're like, two pounds."  
"I am not," Emma protested. Maggie noticed she seemed red in the face, but figured it was from their hot surroundings.  
Maggie crouched down and Emma climbed on her back. Emma was about four or five inches shorter than Maggie and was quite slim at the time, due to having just completed a season of track-and-field. Maggie stood up, faltering a moment, then steady. She plodded back over to where Amy was waiting, pseudo-patiently, for them.  
"You good?" Amy asked as they came back over.  
"Yep," answered Maggie, adjusting her grip on Emma's legs.  
"You sure?"  
"Yeah, no, I'm good. Emma's real light and I do crew, so it's no big deal."  
"Alright," Amy turned forward, hands shoved into pockets neither girl knew existed in her dark robe-like clothing. "But if you need me to take a turn I don't mind."  
"'Kay, thanks."  
"Yep."  
As they walked further, the scenery changed. What was once a boxy room like a recording studio with rocks polished and worn as the walls and ceiling opened out into a large, cavernous area riddled with holes of varying sizes. There was a tall, silver gate ahead of them, rising out of the darkness, with two winged creatures seated atop it. They hissed something down to Amy and she responded in kind, causing the creatures to flutter up and drag the gates open. There were words written on it – written in the same sort of way that those "holographic" pictures are that switch back and forth between one image and another – and they appeared to say "Beware, all those who enter here!" That, or it was just Maggie's imagination tricking her.  
Past the gates, the holes became thicker and smaller. Smoke rose from several of them and the entire place was full of the muffled sound of a bubbling liquid of about the viscosity of heavy syrup. Emma peered, from her higher vantage point on Maggie's shoulders, into one of the holes and saw nothing but a leg, along with several quarts of blood washed along it from heel to the back of the knee. She looked away, dazed.  
"Wow," Maggie whispered, quiet enough that Amy, several yards ahead of her, couldn't hear. Her eyes swept the ground, catching on shining pikes sticking up with their ends bloodied from three or four pits. "This is crazy."  
"It is Hell," reasoned Emma, who, nonetheless, felt just as queasy at the sight of all this suffering as Maggie did.  
"Do you suppose it gets worse?"  
"Probably. I mean, she did say this was only the First Circle, right?"  
"Yeah. Let's just hope we can find some sort of short-cut or something so we don't have to walk through all this stuff again."  
"Mhm."  
Maggie plodded along after Amy, who called out as they walked to other demons in their vicinity. The shards of glass stuck a little in the soles of Maggie's slippers but they hadn't yet cut through to her feet, though that possibility kept Maggie's steps lighter and more cautious than they might otherwise have been.

***

"Hey, sweetheart!"  
A man crouched down and picked up his daughter, who ran at him with arms outstretched. The man's wife stood, arms folded but with a smile on her face, at the door of their one-story home in the more run-down part of the neighborhood. The grass was patchy and dry in the summer heat, and the man could feel his daughter's hands were damp at his neck.  
"Hi, Daddy!" The girl pulled away from her father to look at him. She had her hair braided and beaded and was dressed in a purple dress of the kind that all little girls wear at one point or another, with a full skirt and puffed sleeves.  
"You see what I got you, baby?" The man asked, holding out the present and the card, both hastily stuck together with a piece of Scotch tape, to the little girl in front of him.  
"Is that my present?" She gasped, clutching at the items proffered.  
"You bet."  
The little girl ran to her mother, shouting, "Mommy, Mommy!" The man straightened himself stiffly and ambled down overgrown walk to the front door.  
"Now, what do you say, sugar?" The man's wife prompted.  
The girl turned back to her father. "Thank you, Daddy!"  
"You're welcome, honey-bunch. Now, let's get you inside out of this heat, baby doll, or you'll melt away."  
"No, I won't," the man's daughter protested, smiling widely. "That's silly."  
"You're silly."  
"Daddy!"  
The girl ran inside. The man leaned over and kissed his wife on the cheek.  
"Thank you for inviting me," he said quietly. She nodded, smile fading a little.  
"Wouldn't dream of not," she replied, a touch bitterly.  
The two adults walked inside after their daughter.

***

Amy walks them past the Field of Holes – what Maggie had been referring to it as in her mind – and up to a tall door standing solitary, with nothing behind it, like a sentry on duty, watching over the poor, tortured souls stranded in the pits beside it. They walked, disbelieving, through the door and into a chilly, wet room that couldn't have been more than four feet by four feet. The floor in the room was pretty disgusting, but it wasn't necessarily harmful to human feet, so Maggie set Emma down, a little unintentionally rough through fatigue. Emma grimaced as her bare feet sank into a fleshy substance that pulsed and shuddered as she walked on it. Amy closed the door behind them and moved to the center of the room, Emma and Maggie standing behind her warily.  
"Sss h'll'sh shl'rrs," Amy hissed.  
"What did you just say?" Maggie asked, trying desperately to translate the foreign tongue.  
"Take a wild guess," prodded Amy, a wolfish grin splitting her face.  
"Something about opening a door?" Maggie hazarded, noticing the air around them becoming warmer.  
"Sort of. I gave the password to open the door."  
"And what is the password?"  
"I like pizza," said Amy idly as the glowing red outline of a rectangle flashed on the wall in front of her and then disappeared, leaving a solid wooden door in its place.  
"Neat," commented Emma, stepping through the doorway after Amy and Maggie. Their surroundings had changed again. They now found themselves in a greyish hall, more brightly lit than where they had been before by a series of flaming torches held up by what looked like human hands nailed to the wall. Maggie and Emma blinked as their eyes adjusted to the light, and when they noticed the torches, Emma gave a small start. Maggie watched her as she reached out a cautious finger to the hands. Though, Amy grabbed her wrist before she could touch it and looked suddenly serious.  
"Don’t touch the hands," she warned.  
"Okay," Emma murmured, drawing her hand back. "Why?"  
"Would you like to be poked and prodded all day by some stranger's hands?"  
"If I had nothing else to do besides hold a stupid torch, then, yeah, I would."  
"Exactly. This is Hell, sugarplum, no pleasure allowed."  
Maggie huffed a breath either of laughter or of annoyance, she wasn't quite sure. She thought the whole trip down here was ridiculous in the first place – despite being loathe to admit it to another soul (or demon) -- and Amy's use of such a saccharine nickname for Emma, who hadn't known Amy for even a day, tops, ruffled Maggie's feathers just a bit the wrong way.  
"So," she began after a moment. "Where are those flowers, anyway?"  
"Flowers?" Amy asked blandly, not turning around as she walked down the hall.  
"Yeah, the ones we're gonna get that'll give Cabin Eleven the worst cast of acne in the history of teenagers."  
"Oh, right. Those flowers. Totally had them confused with day lilies for a moment there. I was like, "Hell ain't a florists, darling.'"  
Maggie couldn't quite tell if that was supposed to be sarcasm, so she shot Emma an exasperated look. Amy might have seemed all 'fun and games' while they were all still top-side, but now that they were literally in the land down under she was getting to be a little ditsy in the presence of her demon pals. Maybe it was the air?  
The hallway sloped downwards and led to an ominous white door that should have contrasted with the dark color scheme apparent in everything else down here, and yet Emma found it shockingly devoid of any of the typical connotations of white: it was not peaceful, it didn't look at all innocent, and it most certainly didn't have anything to do with anyone or anything Holy. Emma turned to look at Maggie, who was regarding the door with a blank, calculating face, but whose shoulders were hunched a tad more than they normally were, or should be, for that matter. Emma stepped closer to her and tried to angle herself into Maggie's field of vision. If the light wasn't fooling her – which, given that her sight had been spotty ever since coming down here, wasn't such a remote possibility as you might think – she might have just seen Maggie's shoulders relax a little. That, or the light was fooling her. It was probably the light, Emma figured.  
Amy knocked on the door, appearing just as calm as ever, if a little overly-chill for Maggie's liking. A light, feminine voice sounded from within.  
"Who is it?" The voice called in a sing-song tone.  
"It's Amy, hun. I've got some kiddies I want to show around."  
The door slammed open, revealing a tiny female demon with about six different multicolored scarves draped around her neck and shoulders. At the sight of her three visitors, she launched forward and wrapped her arms around Amy, squealing in a shrill hiccup of delight.  
"Amy, love, I'm so glad to see you!"  
The tiny woman then pulled back and landed a wet kiss on Amy's smiling mouth.  
"Who are these dears, my little watercolor painting?" The tiny woman crooned, pressing more kisses to Amy's ever-reddening face.  
"Lil – Lil, stop – seriously, Lil, this is embarrassing –" Amy gently pushed th tiny woman away by her bird-like shoulders.  
Lil sighed. "Fine. But who are they? I want to know."  
Amy succeeded in getting Lil to un-clamp her arms from around Amy's shoulders.  
"This one's Emma and the other's Maggie," Amy said, pointing out each girl. "I'm helping them get back at some cute boys in a prank war."  
"Oh, how sweet," Lil chirped, pouncing on Maggie for a hug and then Emma, both of whom received her with quiet bewilderment.  
"Are you trying to kill them?" Lil asked innocently, her big black demon eyes wide with delight.  
"No?" Emma responded at the same time that Maggie muttered, "Maybe."  
Amy gave Lil a cheerful wink. "Nah, they're just gonna give the guys some Black Pox flowers."  
"Ooh," cooed Lil, adjusting a purple and green scarf that had slipped somewhat. "I think I have some dried ones in a vase, but those won't be very potent."  
"Do you know where we could get some fresh ones?" Maggie asked, impatient with the demons.  
"Nope! But Amy's good at finding them, aren't you, sugar-bun?"  
Lil then wrapped herself around Amy again. Emma and Maggie shared a look.  
"Amy," Maggie placed a hand on the addressee's shoulder. "Could we speak to you for a minute?"  
Amy tried to step away, but Lil didn't move.  
"In private," Emma added. Lil detached herself reluctantly.  
"Sure, no problem."  
Amy stepped away from Lil a couple of paces, following the lead of the two girls.  
"What's up?" She asked once they were out of Lil's earshot.  
"Did you seriously just bring us here to show us your girlfriend?" Emma accused, peeved not a small amount.  
"What?" Amy admonished, putting a hand to her chest in mock-horror. "Of course not."  
"Is this on the way to wherever we have to go to get the flowers, then?" Maggie asked, narrowing her eyes at Amy, who at least had the decency to look a little sheepish.  
"Not really," she admitted. "But it's only a little out of the way and I hadn't seen her in a couple of days, so..." Amy shrugged.  
Sighing, Maggie pinched the bridge of her nose.  
"Fine," snapped Emma. "But no more detours."  
"And get a room!" Maggie added hotly. "It's embarrassing!"  
"You're just jealous," winked Amy, turning around and walking back to Lil with a little swish to her hips. Emma groaned and Maggie expressed her sympathies.  
"I know, right?"


	3. Sinners and Their Torments

After spending some debatably pleasant time with Lil, the girls and Amy set out again. Lil had shown them a way to get from her humble abode to the stairway down to the Second Circle, the one reserved for virtuous pagans.  
"Just make sure not to slip on the steps going down. I've heard it's a nasty bump on the head to land on one of those spikes," Lil mentioned as she hurried them out the door. Emma appeared somewhat wary at the comment, but didn't mention it for fear of sounding pathetic.  
Amy had taken up chattering again and was only getting worse as the staircase went deeper into the bowels of Hell. She would mention something and one of the girls would respond, but then Amy would simply forget what she had been talking about completely. Maggie found it increasingly irritating as the trip wore on.  
She checked her wrist-watch. It was just past one o'clock in the morning. She paused on the stair and Emma stepped down beside her.  
"What is it?" She asked quietly, leaning over Maggie's shoulder.  
"Oh, nothing," Maggie mumbled. "I'm just tired. It's like one AM."  
"Geez."  
They plodded on down the stairs.

***

The sky was hot and felt too much like an overbearing older sibling to be of any comfort. The few clouds that drifted across the sky were too thin and stretched out to be of any use. Beneath the two trees in the backyard there were shadows, though they, too, were tainted by the heat of the air. A pitcher of lemonade sat, water droplets condensing on its sides, on a little card table set out on a covered patio. Two plastic lawn chairs were set up beside it, and in them sat a middle-aged man and his wife, the woman fanning herself with her hand as the man read the newspaper and sweat.  
Inside the house a little girl was pulling off her pants. She wanted to get them off so she could try on her new bathing suit – one that her aunt had bought her for her birthday last month but that had only come yesterday, given that the aunt mentioned lived, currently, in Arkansas – but the little girl was having difficulty because her pants were sticking to her legs with sweat, and, besides, skinny jeans were always difficult for her to remove. So there she was, hopping on one foot and pulling at the pant leg of the other, in her bedroom on the ground floor of her family's house, just about to call through the open window to her parents, though the window opened on the front of the house while her parents were sitting in the back. Finally, she was able to free her leg from the offending piece of clothing, it slipping over her ankle with almost a pop, and she sat down on the edge of her bed, tossing her pants on the floor to be dealt with later.  
The woman sighed.  
"Hotter than d--- Hell-fire out here," she remarked wearily.  
Her husband grunted a noncommittal response.  
"I said, 'it's hotter than Hell-fire,'" she repeated, louder, in the same weary tone.  
"Yeah," mumbled the man, flipping a page of his newspaper. "Three people shot dead yesterday on Long Avenue."  
"Three?"  
"Yeah, down by that house where they're always shootin' up with drugs."  
"Oh."  
The woman stopped fanning herself, coming to the steady realization that it wasn't doing anything useful, anyway. She briefly thought of the proximity of the latest shooting to her house and family, but the thought faded soon enough.

***

"Could you, like, quit humming for a second?"  
Amy's humming stopped sharply at Emma's rebuke.  
"Sorry."  
"No, it's fine," Emma sighed. "It's just it's really loud down here."  
The deeper they trekked through the Pit, the louder the groanings of the tortured souls trapped within became. Emma could swear that with every two steps the volume rose a decibel.  
At this point, the whole Hell experience was starting to lose its shine. They'd been down here for over an hour, they were exhausted, and those stupid stairs kept getting steeper and steeper. The Second and Third Circles of Hell had been much like the First, and the Fourth was only different in that instead of Pits there were Poles that people were strung up on. Maggie had whispered to Emma something about the wastefulness of spearing a single person per pike when it all could be made much more efficient if you packed five or six people per. Emma had simply nodded and watched as someone, blue in the face from lack of oxygen, writhed on a splintered wooden stake.  
The person had met Emma's gaze and opened their mouth as if to say something, but all that came out was a mouthful of blood caused by their various wounds. Then, just as the blood was starting to ebb in its flow, a demon flew over and stabbed the person anew. Emma looked away.  
She hadn't often considered mortality and its subsequent pain. The glaring fragility of her own human state shocked her and gave her an itch she couldn't quite reach at the back of her mind. She didn't show it, though, simply lengthened her stride and put more distance between the back of her head and the bloodshot eyes that followed it.  
That didn't solve the problem, though. The further she walked, the more she was forced to consider that she might, one day, end up pegged to a stick, forced to pay retribution to someone who didn't – who couldn't -- exist. Maggie wouldn't understand; she had always been a "faithful believer," regardless of how often she went to church in a certain month. But Emma had grown up Christian, grown apathetic after her parents became less involved in her life, and dropped the whole thing like an old toy that's outworn its novelty. Walking through Hell with a demon, most likely going to run into the Devil himself down here sooner or later, really wasn't something that Emma had ever even thought remotely possible, besides the obvious concerns of "how the Hell do I get to Hell in the first place?"  
"Geez, shut up already," Maggie muttered under her breath as they passed yet another tortured soul. "Nobody cares."  
Emma was snapped from her reverie and focused, instead, on the quiet, relatively steady footfalls of her ever-slightly-bothered friend. Folding her arms, Emma stepped up beside Maggie and found valuable, though slight, comfort in her presence.  
Amy stopped suddenly and called out to a friend of hers who was prodding an old woman with a stick.  
"Hey! Jerry, honey, how are you?" Amy stepped over and hugged him. Jerry was short, black, and balding a little on top. He didn't really look that demonic, but his black eyes marked him as one, nonetheless.  
"Amy, hey, good to see you. What's new, left shoe?" Jerry replied, eyes glazed and vaguely contented like a stoner.  
"Eh, just escorting a couple of kiddies to the Black Pox grove. You?"  
"Making sure ol' Nana here doesn't forget why she's stuck up there." Amy and Jerry chuckled. They were in the Fourth Circle of Hell, the one reserved for Sinners in Lust, and Emma could only imagine why an old woman who looked so grandma-ish was down here.  
"Why do you suppose she's here?" Maggie mumbled to Emma, leaning over and tilting her head towards Emma's ear.  
Emma turned towards her, a sly smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. "Probably child pornography, honestly."  
"Ew," Maggie decided after looking Grandma over again. "Definitely 'ew.'"  
Emma gave a little huff of amusement over Maggie's reaction. She may appear cool and collected, but Maggie was as squeamish as the best of them when you could read her well enough.  
"You never know. She could've molested some cutesy little boy," Emma continued, enjoying her ability to make Maggie uncomfortable.   
Maggie grimaced.  
"Maybe it was even her own grandchild," Emma added.  
Maggie turned and gave her an incredulous look. "Where do you even come up with this stuff? You're like Satan."  
"I am in Hell, man," Emma grinned.  
"Eugh," Maggie grunted and turned away, watching the old woman's arm get shredded by Jerry's absentminded ripping.  
"Do you think they ever get bored?" She asked, observing the myriad other Sinners strung up around them.   
"I don't know," mused Emma. "I guess."  
"Hm."  
Amy patted Jerry on the back and turned away from him, gesturing to her two human companions.  
"Come on, girls, quit dilly-dallying; we've got a lot of ground to cover!"  
"We weren't dilly-dallying," Maggie protested, though she was too quiet for Amy to hear. Emma gave her a sympathetic glance.  
Several minutes later, after traipsing through the last ragged edges of the Poles and Pikes and Pokey Things in General, Amy knocked on another solitary door, though this one was decorated sparsely with grinning faces and upraised fists engraved around the edges in the same dark wood as was everything down here.  
It opened with a quiet creak, revealing a reddish glow from within. Maggie felt a momentary pang of discomfort, given that all the previous doors had been abandoned and dark as Amy's soul. The door, however, was not empty within and Amy cautiously opened it a crack more. She heard something small – just a laugh or a breath – but it was enough to put her off. She stepped back, wary.  
"Hold on," she whispered to the girls. They paused, nervously awaiting the demon's verdict.  
Amy stepped forward, shoulders square and chin high. "Show yourself, creature! I am Amy, Demon of Lucifer, and I command you to reveal your form to me!"  
Emma stepped a back just a bit. The door remained silent and stationary. Amy reached forward a hand and ripped it open, both girls startling and stumbling backwards into each other.  
"Ah!" Amy cried. Within the door was a short, squatting creature that looked like a toad and was black as the Devil's heart. It had three eyes and no nose and its mouth was split open with more teeth than any shark in Creation. Maggie reached out a hand and grasped Emma's arm tightly.  
"What the Hell," Amy whispered, stepping carefully closer. Emma thought she must be the gutsiest person she knew.  
Amy, getting ever closer to the squatting creature, reached a tentative but plucky hand forward. The creature jumped up from its squatting position like a leap-frog and bit off Amy's hand. She screamed – Emma and Maggie clutched at their ears. The scream of a demon is like no other thing in Heaven or Hell and their vision went black momentarily. When they came back to themselves, Amy was gone and the squatting creature was shuffling awkwardly towards them.  
"Oh, s---" cursed Emma quietly, backing up slowly and dragging Maggie with her. "S---, s---, s---."  
"Shut up," hissed Maggie. The creature seemed to be listening.   
It hopped forward and the girls stepped backwards. Then, it cleared its throat.  
"You guys sure can't take a joke," it said, almost disappointedly.  
Suddenly, in the place of the Squat Creature, was Lil. She whirled up from the ground, her scarves flowing out around her, and faced the girls, hands on her hips.  
"I thought it'd be funny but I guess you guys are just too jelly-legged."  
"We're not jelly-legged!" Emma protested. "We've never been in Hell before. Geez, give us a break."  
"Emma," Maggie started half-heartedly, not bothering to finish the statement.  
Lil gave a little shrug, a pink-and-red striped scarf sliding down one tiny shoulder. "Not my fault. Anyway, you guys were getting too friendly with Amy."  
"We literally insulted her like five minutes ago," said Maggie with a pointedly raised eyebrow.  
"No, you didn't."  
"Yeah, I told Emma that she looked like one of those stock female characters that get put in movies to up the female cast presence but serve no purpose other than furthering the romantic or sexual plot of the main male protagonist."  
"That's not an insult."  
"Yeah, it is."  
"Nope."  
"Yep."  
"Nope."  
"Yep."  
"Nope."  
"Ye --" Emma put a hand over Maggie's mouth, shutting her up.  
"Guys, really. Let's just forget about this, okay? Lil, we're not trying to --" Emma grimaced at the thought. "Steal your girlfriend, okay? We're just trying to get these stupid flowers and then get the Hell out of here."  
"Ha-ha, very funny."  
"What?"  
"'Get the Hell out of here'?"  
"Wha – oh, whatever. Pun unintended."  
"Sure. Okay, so you aren't trying to steal Amy from my loving arms. What do you need her specifically for, then?"  
Maggie considered. "Nothing. She's just the only one who agreed to take us, really."  
"Okay, well you're getting a new guide."  
"Do we have to?" Emma asked, fed up with Lil's antics.  
"Yes, because I can't trust you with my Amy as far as I can throw you."  
"Fine."  
"Good," Lil chirped, mood brightening suddenly. She tossed the end of one of her scarves over her shoulder. "Let's get going, then. I know a shortcut that Amy doesn't."

"I thought you said you didn't know where the Black Pox flowers grew?" Maggie accused after they'd found themselves tucked away in a rickety little elevator. Lil had dragged them across the Field of Poles and Pikes and Pokey Things in General a second time, back to where they'd entered the Fourth Circle, and showed them the Quick Access Elevator that was reserved for demon use only, but which they were able to use on exception because of their guide.  
Lil shrugged. "I lied."  
Maggie looked singularly unimpressed. "Really?"  
"Yeah, really. I’m a demon, remember?"  
"Yeah, but – honor among thieves, right?"  
"What?"  
"Oh, never mind."  
Maggie huffed and folded her arms across her chest. Emma was slumped quietly against the edge of the elevator, causing it to tilt precariously to the one side, but Emma didn't seem to care. Maggie attempted to tilt the other way to compensate, but still found the unbalanced ride uncomfortable.  
"Would you mind not leaning on the wall?" She asked Emma in a pricklier tone than was strictly necessary. Emma stood up straighter, coming back to herself.  
"Yeah, sorry."

Lil proved to be a much better guide than Amy, even opting to let the girls tour specific parts of Hell that happened to be along their way. Emma had chosen to look around the demon rec rooms, where Lil introduced them to several of her friends and acquaintances. The room wasn't much, but it was stocked with a mini fridge, foozball, ping-pong, and pool tables, and there was a bowl of something that might be chips set up on a little green card table in the corner.  
"Well, you've already met Jerry," she said, gesturing to the short man, who still looked stoned, but now had a glass of a green fizzing substance in his right hand, shaking Emma's with his left. "And this here is Theroth the Great." Lil pulled a tall, burly demon over by his elbow. Theroth appeared intimidating at first, more so than the average demon, and Emma felt her small, feminine hand quite swallowed in his larger one. After the handshake she wiped her hand on her pajama pants, faintly disgusted by the demon's sweaty palms. Lil pulled another demon over, this one around Lil's own height.  
"Here's Theroth the Small," she said politely, careful not to emphasize 'the Small' too much, as the littler Theroth evidently appeared disgruntled by it. He didn't shake hands, simply nodded at Emma.  
Maggie was out of the circle of introductions. She had taken up roots by a window that overlooked the Field of Poles, almost as if instead of tortured souls it was a baseball field down there. She didn't seem unhappy, but Emma could tell she wasn't exactly thrilled to be down here at this little demon shindig, or whatever it was.  
"Hey," she said, bumping her shoulder into Maggie's.  
"Hey."  
"Want to prank these guys?" Emma pulled one of her best roguish grins and could feel Maggie starting to fold.  
"Isn't that a little out-there?" Maggie responded in a hushed tone, glancing over her shoulder at the demons chatting and playing ping-pong behind them. Theroth the Great hit a ball way over Theroth the Small's head, but somehow Theroth the Small jumped up and thwacked it just in time straight into Theroth the Great's forehead. Theroth the Great growled and rubbed his forehead.  
"I don't know, they seem pretty easy targets."  
Maggie half-smiled, one of those ones that are obviously slipping out past a wall of impassivity.   
"I guess," she relented. Leaning her head a little closer to Emma's to better facilitate quiet whispering, Maggie started formulating a plan. "They seem to like their soda, don't they?"  
Emma nodded, knowing where Maggie was going with this. "It's in your back pocket, isn't it?"  
"You know it," Maggie winked, pulling out a little tube of super glue she always kept with her 'in case of emergencies.' Emma took it covertly and headed over to the mini fridge, opening it quietly. Lil was leaning on the card table, talking with Jerry about something or other while the two Theroths continued their ping-pong battle. Emma grabbed a can of soda – ostensibly the green fizzy stuff that Jerry was sipping at in his cup – and pulled the cap off the super glue, squeezing a little dot of it under the pop-tab. She slipped the can back in the fridge and pulled out the next. After gluing the tabs down on the four or five cans that were in there, Emma closed the fridge and wandered back to Maggie, smiling calmly and handing over the super glue while no one was looking. Maggie smiled down at her, appearing simply friendly, but Emma felt a tiny pulse of pride knowing that she'd just set a trap for a couple of demons.  
"I hope they don't smite us," she whispered to Maggie, the thrill of anticipation running fizzy through her veins.  
"Me too," Maggie whispered back, folding her arms over her chest and watching.  
Lil's conversation with Jerry paused as Jerry tilted his head back and drained the rest of his drink from his cup. Lil walked over to the girls, a little more spring in her step than had been back in the elevator.  
"I hope you don't mind," she said, gesturing to the room at large. "It's just I don't often get out, these days, and when Emma asked what was in here, I just couldn't really resist."  
"It's fine," assured Maggie, a quiet nastiness underlying her tone that Lil didn't pick up on but which made Emma's heart skip a beat. She noticed, out of the corner of her eye, Jerry opening the mini fridge. He bent down, picked up a can. Lil was talking about Theroth the Small and Maggie was nodding, but Emma could see her eyes were on Jerry. He fiddled with the pop-tab. He frowned. He tried digging his fingernail under it, but that didn't work. Maggie, amazingly, was able to keep a grin off her face.  
"Hey, Lil, come check this out," he called. Lil returned obediently to his side.  
"What is it?"  
"I can't open this pop can. It's stuck."  
"Here, let me try." Lil tried shoving her tiny fingers under the tab, but it still wouldn't budge. "Huh, that's weird. I guess something's wrong with it – why don't you try a different one?"  
"Good idea," said Jerry, and he bent to pick up another.  
Maggie and Emma shared a covert glance, then Maggie ducked her head to hide a tiny smile.  
"Hmm." Lil fiddled with the tab of the second can. She called over to Thorath the Small to help her, and he smacked the ping-pong ball over to Thorath the Great before walking over, faintly irate.  
"What?"  
"Can you help me open this pop can?"  
"Why can't you do it?"  
"I don't know, it's stuck."  
"Hm," he grunted, smirking. Obviously, he thought Lil too weak to even open a pop can and was about to demonstrate his manly superiority to her by opening the can, yet even he, Thorath the Small, was unable to open the pop can. He grunted and fiddled and frowned but it still wouldn't budge. Eventually Thorath the Great was called over and he tried, but his huge fingers were too big to even open a normal can, much less one that was stuck. Maggie and Emma didn't bother offering their assistance, and chuckled to themselves as a couple of demons were struck dumb by glued-down pop-tabs.  
After much effort, the demons eventually gave up and shrugged it off as "one of those things." Maggie and Emma smiled widely as Lil walked them out, saying goodbye to Jerry and the Thoraths with a wave of her little hand.  
"Strange," she commented as the three of them headed back into the elevator.  
The girls agreed, and nothing more was said of the incident.

***

"Baby doll, come here a second," the man called to his daughter. The little girl stopped running around in a sprinkler and turned, heading back over to her father, who was sitting in the shade of the porch.  
"What's that on your face?" He asked, gently brushing his fingers across a dark bruise under the little girl's eye. She turned her face away and looked down. "Baby, tell me," he urged, placing his big, gently hands on her shoulders. She gave her Daddy a little smile and shyly looked up at him.  
"Can you keep a secret?" The little girl asked, tone serious but sweet in her pre-pubescent voice.  
"A secret?" The man's eyebrows drew closer together, his face showing concern.  
"Mm-hm. It's important."  
"Okay, baby, I can keep a secret. Now tell me what happened."  
The little girl looked down, ashamed. "I was bad."  
"Bad?" The man asked gently.  
"Yeah. I broke one of my Barbies' heads."  
"Oh, baby, that's okay. I'll get a new one."  
"No," the little girl shook her head, voice quiet and resigned. "Mommy said I couldn't. She said that if I broke any more toys she'd break my head off."  
The man blinked. "She said that?"  
"Yeah. But don't tell her," the girl added hurriedly, eyes widening and looking at her father in a slight panic. "She said I couldn't."  
"I won't tell her, baby, don't worry," the man said, folding his daughter closer into his arms, rubbing a hand up and down the little girl's back. "Don't worry."

***

Maggie had noticed an odd contraption, composed primarily of twisted sticks and things tied together in bundles, and had pointed to it, asking what it was. Lil seemed a little surprised at the question.  
"Oh, that's a switch."  
"But it's so big," Maggie protested. "There's no way you'd be able to hit anyone with it."  
"It was created that large so as to service the greatest number of Sinners at one time."  
"Oh. Fun."  
"No, not really," said Lil breezily. "But that's not really any of my concern."  
Maggie nodded absentmindedly, somewhat shocked. Emma, who hadn't even really noticed the giant switch, bit aggressively at the edge of her thumb-nail, breaking it off with a loud snap.  
"This is kind of boring," Maggie admitted, turning to face Lil. "Like, your friends are cool and all but the wake-up call is in four hours and I kind of want to sleep before then."  
"You've got a time limit?"  
"Yes, we've got a time limit! Didn't Amy say?"  
"No?" Lil frowned a little, evidently distressed that Amy hadn't told her something.  
"Great, just great," Maggie went on, tone bitter. "We've been doing literally nothing useful for the past two hours. I haven't even slept and Emma isn't wearing any shoes!" Maggie tossed an exasperated hand at Emma, who appeared almost embarrassed by her barefoot state. "Where are you even taking us?"  
"To the Black Pox Grove," mumbled Lil, surprised by Maggie's outburst.  
"Well forget about it – take us back. I don't want the stupid flowers, I want to go home."  
"Not home," pointed out Emma, somewhat pensively. Her nail polish was chipping.  
"Fine, not home, but can't we just get back to camp?" Maggie exclaimed, glaring at the tiny demon before her.  
"If you want..." Responded Lil reluctantly. "Lemme just turn the elevator around."  
She grabbed the lever firmly with both hands – it was nearly as large as her torso – and cranked it into the 'up' position. The elevator gave a jolt and started creaking its way ever upward.  
The ride was awkward, to say the least. Emma remained silent while Maggie fumed, way too sleep deprived to deal with Hell any longer, and Lil glanced nervously between the two of them for signs of how to continue. Emma tried to signal to Lil that the best way to deal with an angry Maggie was to just shut up and let it blow over, but Lil apparently didn't get the message. She stepped over to Emma and started whispering fervently about Maggie's "distressing behavior," and asking whether this was "typical" of her. Maggie just glared at the be-scarved demon and Emma shrugged awkwardly and looked away.  
Creaking noisily, the elevator eventually came to a halt. Lil pulled the grate aside and stepped through onto the platform. They were back in the First Circle, in the main hub of transportation between Earth and the Fiery Furnace. A demon was escorting an odd amalgamation of Sinners, all of them blinking wearily at the realization that they were not resting on their laurels in Paradise, a golden harp between their twiddling fingers. One of the pack spotted Maggie as she walked past them, a little behind Lil and Emma as they headed back towards the staircase up. The man wasn't as old as the rest of them and his eyes – they seemed familiar.  
Maggie looked away. He was already dead.  
The scratching of the splintery wood on her palm kept Maggie's thoughts off of anything strictly necessary as they climbed. She thought, occasionally, that Emma and Lil seemed to be breathing a little louder than they had been, but she just chalked it up to them being tired. This led to Maggie checking her watch -- it was 2:49 am and Maggie felt the fatigue creep up behind her like a shadow, willing to let her fall as soon as she paused on the rickety stairs.  
Ascending seemed much the same as descending, as far as Emma could tell, and she was surprised when hardly any time had passed before Lil was stooping under the black granite ceiling, chanting some sort of spell. A little white orb rose from her extended palms and was absorbed by the granite, stretching out a hole in the darkness that Emma thought was similar to those gauges people wear in their ears. Slowly she could make out the edges of the floorboards in their cabin, and then the feet of the bed closest to the portal.  
Lil let the circle grow until it was wide enough for the girls to crawl through – about two or three feet across, give or take six inches. She then stepped down a couple steps to let them have room to get up. Emma offered her a quick smile and a handshake, which Lil accepted with relief. It appeared as if she had been under the impression that Emma disliked her just as much as Maggie acted to, which of course was not the truth.  
"Thanks," was Emma's last word to the miniature demon before she heaved herself up on her forearms and crawled up onto the cabin floor. She then immediately pulled herself onto her bed and tucked her head into her pillow, willing to forget all of the events of the evening if only she could sleep.  
"Hey," Maggie started quietly, stepping up until she was level with Lil's face. "Thank you."  
Lil's smile was sweet but still disbelieving. "Oh, it was nothing, really. I had – have -- the day off, so – doesn't matter."  
"It was nice to meet you," smiled Maggie, trying her best to make it up to the skittish demon before her. "Really."  
"It was nice to meet you, too. And Emma," she added hastily in the fears that Emma might overhear their conversation.  
"And Emma," Maggie affirmed.  
Maggie offered her hand briskly and it was shaken in the same manner. She then stepped up above Lil and climbed up, back in the world she knew. She was about to turn around and take one last look, but her slipper got caught on the edge of the portal and she stumbled a little. Her slipper slid off her foot, unfortunately, and she got a slight shiver from a cool breeze that slipped, ostensibly, from the window down to the small of her back and up to her neck. Maggie pulled herself to standing quickly, and rubbed the goosebumps at the nape of her neck with a thrill. She looked over and noticed Emma sleeping, already, in her bed. The shadow of fatigue whispered its promises to her and the bed opened its wide, plush arms to Maggie's worn form. The embrace was sweet and lasted until the shrill of the wakeup call.


	4. Someone Gets a Stalker

"Uugghh," Emma groaned as she rubbed her hand roughly against her face, trying to remember who she was and why she was still alive.   
"Mmf," was the reply from the lump in Maggie's sleeping bag. Maggie was usually awake before the wakeup call, due to her horrible tendency to rise at the literal crack of dawn, which, at this time of year, was typically about four thirty.  
"I feel like death," Emma remarked as she pulled yesterday's t-shirt over her head. It was difficult to dress with limbs that felt like noodles, but Emma thought she made it work. Maggie still hadn't moved, so Emma took the liberty of stumbling over to her friend and pulling the pillow out from under her head. Maggie's head then fell with a thunk on the space between the green-plastic-covered camp mattress and the metal bed-frame supporting it. A low, sustained whine emanated from Maggie's prone form and she slowly, very slowly started lifting her head.  
Emma was now dragging one of her numerous pairs of Nike running shorts over her tired legs. Socks were, unfortunately, mandatory at camp so Emma sat down on the edge of her bed and picked out two that smelled a little less than the rest. Maggie was now sitting up, blinking resignedly at the crooked mirror hanging on the wall opposite the cabin door.  
"Do we have to go to breakfast?" She asked petulantly. If Emma hadn't been a part of the previous night's proceedings, she would have thought the incongruous behavior of her cabin-mate suspicious, but now she just offered a weak smile and a "sorry."  
The five-minute-warning bell rang. Maggie was still changing her shirt. "Hey, you go on without me – snag us a good table, 'kay?"  
"Sure," agreed Emma as she slipped her feet into the running shoes that hadn't been untied since the first time the laces were knotted. Pushing the creaky cabin door open, she scuffed out onto the muddy ground. As she passed the other cabins, not all of which were empty, Emma came into a little valley with the dining hall nestled between two sloping hills. A group of about a hundred kids were gathered, waiting, outside the doors while a couple of jaded camp counselors tried to induce the crowd to play truth or dare – without any inappropriate questions or answers, that is.  
After Emma left the cabin, Maggie dressed more quickly. She had had an uncomfortable feeling of being watched, even though she had never felt strange while changing in front of another girl before. The feeling persisted, however, and Maggie decided it was a remnant of last night's adventures. Of course, she checked behind her shoulder about five times before admitting that she was alone, but she didn't seriously think that there was anything wrong. Still, she definitely didn't loiter over her shoelaces.  
The outside air was somewhat damp and Maggie sensed that it would rain later. The boys in cabin eleven had already left for breakfast and Maggie would have thought this the prime opportunity to get them back if she actually had any sort of prank planned or available. Instead, she just passed by sullenly and tried to pick out Emma's light brown head amongst so many other ponytails.  
Just as Maggie walked over to the crowd, the bell rang again and the counselors gave up their futile attempts at truth-or-dare-ing and opened the doors. When the kids all poured in it was terribly obvious which cabins had observed the ten o'clock lights-out policy and which cabins hadn't. Emma and Maggie tried to put on a happy face and add a little spring to their step, but it wore off after sitting down at their table.  
"I wish the coffee didn't taste like c---," Emma lamented sorrowfully, Maggie nodding in agreement. "At least there's bacon this morning."  
“Yeah.” Emma’s words fell on mostly-deaf ears. Maggie felt sick and she wasn’t really in the mood to eat. When the campers were allowed to go up and join the line to get food, Maggie refrained and instead sipped lethargically at her cup of lukewarm water. Emma had pushed her chair back on the squeaky tiled floor and joined the line. She would probably get Maggie one of those crunchy, microwaveable waffles and drown it in enough syrup to make the people of Canada all millionaires.  
The dining hall was pretty loud this morning with the shuffle of shoes on the floor combined with the inevitable conversation of seven o’clock in the morning. Usually, Maggie would just ignore the noise and she did so again now. Her eyes were fixed, unfocused, on the sticky floor about three feet from her toes. It might have been her imagination – after all, not only was she overly-tired and sleep-deprived, but she had also probably inhaled something weird during their gallivant through Hell last night – though something about the way the shadows seemed unable to touch that uneven patch of floor tiles made Maggie think something might be a little fishy, besides her own perception.  
She stretched her leg out just a little farther, slumping down in her seat to do so. As her leg moved, so did her shadow, and Maggie tried to aim it onto the uneven patch that was acting so anti-shadow-social. Was that a term? Maggie didn’t really care. Anyway, she slid down in her seat so that the top hem of her short-shorts nearly touched the plastic surface of the chair’s bottom. The shadow would be fine, normal, a little weak in the rising sunlight, but visible, all until it came upon the weird little bump in the tiles. Then, it would fizzle or something at the edges and disappear altogether when over the top of the bump. Maggie narrowed her eyes, weary but curious, and tried the other leg. She was just about to have her two legs’ shadows converge on the patch of strange-ness, when she realized she was blocking the way to another table and some poor guy had been coughing awkwardly, mumbling “Excuse me” under his breath for about a minute or two. Maggie abruptly dropped her heels to the ground and sat up so she didn’t look quite as inebriated as she had before and tried to smile away the awkwardness.  
“Sorry,” she blurted out as the dude made his way past her and sat down at his own table, setting his tray in the limited space available to him on the table-top. He seemed familiar in a can’t-quite-place-it way until Maggie remembered that that was one of the guys from cabin eleven. What was it Amy had said about them? Was this the Marine or the closeted gay? Maggie spent a good thirty seconds or so staring at the kid as he tried to ignore her and eat his eggs and toast but eventually ended up staring back at her, expression a trifle concerned.  
Maggie met his eyes with a sudden rush of embarrassment. She hurriedly looked down at her hands and tried to force herself to appear cool, collected, not creepy. She had a disheartening thought that it failed.  
Emma pulled over a seat and Maggie was pulled from her inspection of the stitching at the hem of her shirt. She slid a flimsy paper plate over to Maggie with a waffle, drenched, as expected, in enough syrup to stick all the flies of the world to the sides of the George Washington monument, as well as a couple greasy sausage links. Maggie took the plate and the accompanying fork after thanking Emma in a slightly flat tone.  
Emma herself had gotten a bowl of instant maple-and-brown-sugar oatmeal, a cup of orange juice, and a couple of pieces of toast and some of those grape jelly packs that you need about two of to cover a realistic piece of bread. She was now engaged in opening said packs and spreading the contents over the dry white bread with a plastic knife. Maggie chewed on her crunchy waffle thoughtfully.  
“Hm,” she contributed in a gruff voice that was clogged with crumbs. “Look at that.”  
The other guy from cabin eleven walked over and sat down next to his buddy and the first guy – the one, Maggie admitted to Emma in hushed tones, she had been accidentally staring at – got all pink in the face and didn’t move his chair quite as far over as the two girls thought was normal. Ah, summer camp gossip, Emma thought as she grinned suggestively at Maggie.  
“One of them is a Marine, right?” she asked.  
“Not yet, technically. Amy said he was considering it, I think.”  
“Ah.”  
The dry, tasteless food seemed more appetizing as the smiles stretched their faces. Suddenly, Cabin Eleven Guy #2 looked over and gave Maggie a weird look while Cabin Eleven Guy #1, the one Maggie had stared at, whispered something to Guy #2. Maggie stared back defiantly, but then that turned stale and she let the matter drop. She didn’t really care all that much, anyway, and the coffee machines were running low.  
“Do you want any?” she asked Emma as she got up to go grab herself a cup of brown joy. “I don’t mind.”  
“Yeah, sure, thanks.”  
“Hey, no problem. You got me breakfast.”  
“True,” Emma conceded with a grin.  
As Maggie pushed her way past several other sleepy-eyed campers, Emma stretched her legs out a little and sipped at her juice in almost a daze. She thought about how different Hell looked than this dining hall, and how – normal – it had seemed to see those people strung up and ripped apart after two hours of it. She stopped drinking, but kept the cup held up to her lips. Was last night real? Maggie remembered it. But – but how could they even – it was crazy. Oh, s---, she thought. Am I crazy? Are we both crazy? These hissed into her mind like the steam out of a teapot – sort of an inverse teapot, she supposed – and she let herself be swept just a little off the shore of sanity and into the sea of worry and obsession.  
But she still had super-glue stuck to her right pointer-finger.  
Maggie came back and set a cup of coffee in front of Emma, breaking her from her silent crisis. “Here,” she said, glancing covertly at the Cabin Eleven Guys. Emma took the cup and sipped at it, burning her tongue slightly.  
“Ugh.” She stuck the tip of her tongue out as it stung. Maggie was pretending to read the Camp Rules but was, in all probability, attempting to discern which Cabin Eleven Guy was which.  
“I know the one with glasses is allergic to seafood,” Emma offered, speech a little slurred due to her tongue not being entirely within her mouth.  
“Yeah, but which one’s the Marine?”  
“Hm.”  
They studied the two guys, assessing their demeanors and apparent physical fitness level.   
“I think it might be Allergy Guy,” Maggie muttered.  
“But he’s got glasses.”  
“So?”  
“Can’t you like, not have glasses, or something?”  
“What? No, that’s stupid.”  
“Sorry,” huffed Emma indignantly, obviously not sorry.  
“No, I’m sorry, that was rude, I just mean that – Marines can wear glasses. That’s not, like, uh – a deciding characteristic.”  
“I suppose.”  
“Quit sticking your tongue out you look like you’re twelve.”  
“Maybe I am twelve.”  
Maggie rolled her eyes. “Wouldn’t be surprised.”  
“Hey!”  
“Just teasing.”  
Maggie took a crunch of her waffle, which at this point had lost nearly all of its allure. Cabin Eleven Guy #2 – also known as ‘Allergy Guy’ – then stood up and walked over to Maggie and Emma’s table, causing Emma to choke on her coffee and Maggie’s eyes to go about as wide as saucers as she thumped Emma on the back to save her from death by stale camp coffee.  
“Hey,” Allergy Guy started, a little brusque. “What do you want?”  
“Uhh,” faltered Maggie, still trying to help Emma breathe again. “Nothing?”  
Allergy Guy was having none of it. “Why are you two staring at us? You look like you’re gonna kill us or something.”  
“Geez, man, I was reading the Camp Rules,” Maggie tried, though this was obviously a lie and Allergy Guy didn’t seem to believe her one bit.  
“Yeah, right, totally. It’s the third week of camp and you still need to read the rules.”  
“They’re interesting! Have you ever read the Camp Rules, mister – ?”  
“Graham.”  
“Alright, Mister Graham, have you ever read the Camp Rules?” Emma finally got control of her respiration and Maggie folded her arms accusingly over her chest as she asked this, one eyebrow cocked.  
“Yes, I have, actually. I read them the first day we were here.”  
“Then you should know they have benefit.”  
“Not after the fiftieth time you’ve read them,” Allergy Guy – Graham – retorted.  
“Maybe not for you,” Emma butted in, coming hastily to Maggie’s defense. “But we’re the studious kind and we like to memorize things for recitation late at night when we get bored.”  
Graham narrowed his eyes. “If you’re such sticklers for the rules then you shouldn’t be up late at night.”  
Emma floundered for a moment. “Uh...”  
“The rules say, ‘light’s out,’ not ‘be asleep’ at ten. You’re wrong,” Maggie shot back.  
Graham sighed. “Whatever. Just – quit staring at us. It’s creepy.”  
“Fine.”  
“Thank you.”  
“You’re welcome.”  
Graham walked back to his table and sat next to Cabin Eleven Guy #2. Maggie looked over at Emma and smirked. They really had to find out a better moniker than Cabin Eleven Guy #2, though.

* * *

Touching his hand to his daughter’s forehead, the man tried to tell if she was feverish or simply overheated from a day in the sun.  
“I don’t feel sick, Daddy,” the little girl protested as her father brought her inside to the kitchen, where he got her a glass of water and made her sit down. “See? I can go like this –“ she flexed her little arms and her father smiled.  
“I know, baby,” the man comforted while grabbing a washcloth out of the linen cupboard in the hall. “I just have to check.” He ran the washcloth under warm water and lightly rubbed it over her forehead. Faintly flushed, his daughter’s skin was damp with sweat. The man brushed a few wisps of hair back from her scalp.  
“Daddy?” The little girl asked after her father had finished with the washcloth.  
“Yeah, baby?”  
“How do you know when someone’s an angel?”  
“How do you know when someone’s an angel?” The man repeated, pulling a chair out and sitting down, his daughter’s legs dangling down from her perch on the table beside him.  
“Yeah, like when it says you gotta be kind in case the person’s an angel. How do you tell?”  
“Well, baby, usually angels show up in a big flash of lightning and everybody gets scared. But sometimes – and these are the special times – those angels show up and nobody knows it. Then they just look like regular ol’ people and you can’t tell ‘em from your mother.”  
The little girl giggled. “Really?”  
“Really. See, the Bible never says exactly how them angels do that, but I always liked to think they could make themselves look like people if they wanted to, that way people wouldn’t be so scared of ‘em.”  
“Why wouldn’t they do it all the time so no one was ever scared?”  
“Well, baby,” the man started in a gentle tone. “Sometimes people need to be scared. Sometimes people need to have a little push in the right direction, and sometimes that push is a little rough. But usually, the harder the push the closer you were to the dangerous thing.”  
“So the bad people get the scary angels?”  
“Not always. Sometimes it’s the good people who are about to do something bad that get the scary ones.”  
“Huh. That’s cool,” the little girl stated, looking ponderously into the distance with her brows slightly drawn together.  
“Mm-hm.”

* * *

“Could you quit stepping on my shoes?” Maggie asked, irritated. She reached down and pulled the back of her Vans sneaker up over her heel.  
“I wasn’t!” Emma protested, emerging from behind another girl who was walking with them.  
“Then who was?”  
“I don’t know!”  
“Hm,” Maggie grunted. Their little three-cabin group was heading down to the camp archery range for some “fun time,” and Maggie wasn’t really looking forward to it. She typically liked sporty activities, but this morning was really just not her best. Emma was looking a little rough, too; her normally perky eyebrows were dropped down in a flat line over her eyes and there was a fragile set to her mouth that wasn’t very typical, either.  
They had left the dining hall and left by a trail weaving behind it through a tiny grove of paper birches and opened out into another divot in the geography of the area: a cutesy little round valley that looked like it had been scooped out of the ground with a spoon and was surrounded on three sides by trees and on the fourth by a little ducky pond.  
Emma’s feet squelched in the damp grass and she resigned herself to the fate of her white Converse low-tops getting dirtied, a fate she had more or less accepted two weeks ago after the first heavy rain here at camp. Maggie had been only slightly more sensible in her choice of footwear to bring with some black Vans, but they, too, bore the marks of many a walk through camp trails.  
The range instructor was a middle-aged man with a mustache who wore a lot of camouflage and always had a secret beer hidden behind one of the bushes dotted underneath where he had set up a little pop-up pavilion, one of those kinds you can get at Target for about seventy dollars. He cleared his throat with a fist over his mouth and got up off his camp chair and brought out the clipboard with the range rules printed on a laminated page and clamped on there from day one until day twenty-eight.  
“Rule number one, no arrows pointed anywhere but at the ground and down-range. Rule number two, no . . .” He droned on.  
Maggie had her hands slid into her back pockets and was regarding the dewy grass as the sun rose, watery as if after a recent cry session, over the tops of the trees and tentatively brushed the dampness away. She watched as Emma was handed a bow by the instructor’s assistant – some pimply twenty-three year old guy fresh out of state college – and then took one herself. The girl Emma had been walking next to refused the bow offered her and explained that she needed the lefty one. The requested bow was given her, and then the instructor quit his droning and walked out in front of the campers to repeat the same instructions they had heard every third day excluding Sundays since the start of camp:  
“Don’t start shooting until I give the signal, and then you can shoot as much as you want until you run out of arrows. Don’t go down to collect them until everyone is done, and then only until I give the signal. Clear?”  
“Clear.”  
“Alright, then y’all are ready to shoot.”  
The instructor waddled quickly off the range and sat down in his camp chair, taking a secretive swig of his Coors Light. He squeezed the bulb on a mini air horn that, instead of the startling sound of full-size ones, simply gave a little squeak like doggie toys.  
Emma picked up an arrow and notched it to her bow. These were compound bows and the pull-back was easy; finding her anchor point – just at the seam of her lips – was easy as pie after how many times she’d done this during the summer. She wasn’t technically required to aim for her own target, but common decency kept her arrow pointed towards the one seated about fifteen or twenty feet in front of her. The string was taut – she took a breath in – exhaling, she released the bowstring – the arrow flew and hit the target in the second ring, just above the bull’s-eye.  
Maggie watched as Emma’s arrow hit the wooden target with a heavy thunk, the fletching swinging up and down like the needle on a seismometer. Maggie picked up one of her own arrows and fitted the notch to the bowstring. She pulled back, started aiming, then released and pointed her arrow back towards the mud at her feet – she had felt someone’s fingers touching her neck. Holding the arrow and the bow awkwardly in one hand, she rubbed the other one across where she’d felt the fingers, rationalizing it to herself as “just a bug.” There wasn’t anything there and Maggie felt the little seed of discomfort that had first bothered her at breakfast grow, though just a little. She gripped her bow again and drew the string, firing without aiming much first and landing a sloppy shot at the edge of the target.  
Emma looked over at her, noticing the change in her friend’s shooting ability between this morning and all previous ones. She met Maggie’s eyes and was slightly taken aback by the haunted look in them. Blinking and, embarrassingly, blushing, Emma looked away, startled. She resolved to herself to ask Maggie if anything was up – once they were safely alone, that is. Emma had never trusted that archery instructor and had a firm conviction that he ogled their butts from his convenient place seated behind them and just a bit lower. She gave him a quick glance now and confirmed that he was staring rather fixedly at the lefty shooter’s shorts. Emma narrowed her eyes. The next arrow that hit her target landed right in the bull’s-eye.  
Maggie pursed her lips. The arrows fumbled slightly in her slick fingers, sweaty from nerves. She took a deep breath and tried to focus, but to no avail. Something felt wrong about this – something that wasn’t necessarily related to where she was or what she was doing, but more what she had forgotten to do. A nagging sensation tugged at her mental sleeve and spoke in such a hushed voice that she couldn’t make out what it was she was supposed to remember. Biting her lip in resolve, she fired the rest of her arrows without much care for where they landed – one stuck in the grass, one nicked the edge of the target and fell somewhere behind it, and another stuck in the second circle of the target. She didn’t really care if it looked like her skill was deteriorating; she knew how skilled she was and she had always performed adequately, if not impressively, at all the previous archery practices.  
The instructor heaved himself up off his camp chair and shuffled over to Maggie, clamping a heavy hand down on her shoulder and startling her out of her dismal wistfulness.  
“You alright, kid? You’re missin’ nearly everything.” His breath smelled like his beer and Maggie really wished he’d take his hand off her shoulder.  
“Oh,” Maggie blurted, startled. “No, I’m fine – just tired.”  
“Up late, huh?”  
“Yeah,” she admitted with a sheepish smile that she hoped looked genuine enough. The instructor seemed to take the bait; he responded with a furtive quirk of his lips and a nod of his head.  
“I see, I see,” he hummed, removing his hand (finally) from Maggie’s shoulder. She offered him another smile and he took it and sat down with it, reading it like a tabloid magazine you pick up at a gas station and read just because you’ve got nothing better to do. Maggie noticed Emma was looking at her in sympathy, so she jumped her eyebrows to indicate she was fine, or at least mostly unharmed. Emma winked back at her and they turned back to their targets.  
The instructor squeaked his little horn again and called out that everyone could collect their arrows now. The lefty set down her bow and stepped forward to collect her arrows with Maggie and Emma, resting one hand on the target as she used the other to cleanly pull the tips free of the wood.  
As Maggie bent down to pick up the arrow that had fallen behind her target, Emma bent down, too, pretending to search for something in the grass.  
“Hey,” she whispered, shooting Maggie a worried glance. “You okay? You seem a little off – and I don’t just mean your shooting,” she added with a weak smile. Maggie felt abloom of compassion for Emma, whose question sounded so much more genuinely concerned for her well-being and so much less vaguely threatening than the instructor’s.  
“I’m okay, but I feel kinda weird – or sick, I guess.” Maggie stood up, having collected all her arrows. “Sort of like someone keeps watching me, you know?”  
Emma flicked her gaze momentarily back to the instructor as they walked back to the front of the range as if to say, “someone is.” Maggie gave her a sly smile.  
The lefty squeezed past Emma to put her arrows in the bin for the next group to use. “’Scuse me,” she muttered before turning and walking as far ahead of the two as she could without getting reprimanded for walking without a buddy. Emma felt a little bad for her; she was stuck in Cabin Four with a bunch of girls who all went to the same school and, so far, due, mostly, to her quiet and nature, hadn’t made any friends and was thus stuck tagging along with whatever group was available at any time.  
They made their way back to the center of camp and reviewed their daily assignments of chores and activities. Lefty was floated over to another group to do “equine activities” and Emma and Maggie were shifted for lunch cleanup and hiking in the afternoon. There were about ten minutes of free time before they headed out to lunch so they scuffed their way over to a a hidden little bench within the woods behind the dining hall. Maggie had first discovered the bench – a mossy, wooden thing that hadn’t seen a backside in about twenty years – during the third day, when she was engaged in an all-camp hide and seek game and was still shy enough to be motivated to pick the best hiding spot in the entire camp.  
She had blundered, without direction, through the trees and had cracked her knee-cap on the edge of the bench’s seat. Silencing her instinctual yelp of pain, Maggie had sat down and rubbed at her knee, and hadn’t been found until someone tricker her and a lot of other campers into revealing themselves by claiming there was someone in need of First Aid treatment, at which point, Maggie, of course, had rushed out, only to find herself face to face with a grinning fourteen year old boy.  
She now lowered herself beside Emma on the bench, placing her hands on her knees and staring morosely into the trees.  
“So you feel weird?” Emma prompted, turning to regard her friend with an open expression. Maggie’s eyes turned downcast and she seemed to force herself not to look behind herself.  
“Yeah,” she admitted wearily. “It’s been all day.”  
“Well, it’s only eleven.”  
“I know, I just,” Maggie faltered. “I don’t know if it’s because of – you know.”  
“Yeah,” agreed Emma, thinking of all the weird ways a trip to Hell could affect you.  
Maggie looked at the leaves of a bush that was squatting nearby and tried to remind herself that there was really nothing behind her. At first, her pursed lips and squinted eyes scared off any heebie-jeebies, but apparently they don’t stay scared for very long because she was staring to feel a little more nervous with every passing moment. Emma wasn’t being very helpful, either, just sitting there and examining the old, chipping nail-polish that she’d put on before camp and hadn’t redone since, because she hadn’t brought any with her. What was Emma even doing? Why was Maggie there at all? There was no point to sitting here on this bench, skin crawling all over from some imaginary sensation that was interfering with her peace of mind.  
Maggie stood up.  
“Hey,” Emma called out as Maggie walked away, out of the woods and back towards the dining hall and camp office. Emma quickly got up and followed her friend, jogging a little to catch up. “Dude, what’s up?”  
“Maggie!” Emma prodded when Maggie didn’t respond. “Is something wrong? What’s up?”  
Maggie just brushed past her and walked briskly out of the trees, pushing branches away from her face and carelessly letting them snap back and swat Emma in the eyes. Emma flinched and tried not to get angry, resolutely following Maggie as she walked past the center of camp and towards the cabins.  
“Lunch is in, like, two minutes, Maggie,” Emma reminded as they circled the little valley, keeping away from the growing crowd of kids centered around the dining hall. “Maggie.”  
“Shut up,” Maggie finally responded, harshly, as they turned the corner of the path leading to the cabins and came in sight of the first cluster of them. A squirrel darted up a tree trunk as Maggie stormed past, footsteps falling heavily on the drying path, the mud turning to dust. Emma scurried after her, having given up on trying to get Maggie to speak and also not totally wishing to disobey her commands at this particular moment – normally, she’d criticize Maggie’s rudeness, but now she was more concerned with finding out why her friend was acting so upset.  
The cabin door smacked open and Maggie’s footsteps sounded heavily on the wooden floorboards. Emma put a hand out to stop the door from slamming in her face and followed in after her, closing the door more gently than Maggie had bothered to.  
“Okay, Maggie, seriously: what’s up?” Emma stood with her back against the door, preventing Maggie from finding any outs – not that she seemed like she wanted to leave the cabin, anyway; she was sitting down on the edge of her bed, staring at where the portal had been the night previously. Screwing her face up into a determined scowl, she commanded with an authority only present in her demeanor when upset or jubilant.  
“Amy, get your a-- up here right now.”  
The result was anti-climactic: nothing happened. Emma left her post by the door and stepped over her own bed to stand next to where Maggie was sitting.  
“What’s Amy got to do with this?” she asked, lowering herself down onto the creaky mattress covered with Maggie’s sleeping bag.  
“Everything, probably. Amy, get over here, now,” she barked out that last word with such a fierce intonation that Amy was probably flinching just at the sound. Though still, nothing happened.  
Maggie became irate. “Amy, seriously!”  
The two girls sat on the bed, watching the floor for any signs of movement. Outside, the warm dampness of the air turned into a light drizzle, and then that drizzle turned to raindrops, heavy and glutted on the summer morning like a mosquito in a tent at midnight. The pattering of the drops on the roof faded into the background as Maggie glared a hole into the floor. She had been thinking the matter over and had come to the realization that it must have been something that Amy did that was causing her to feel so – off. She may not have meant to do it – though that was far less plausible than its opposite – but she, nevertheless, had got to have something to do with a strange feeling that everyone is watching you and feeling you up when you can’t see them. It sounded right up her alley.  
“Amy!” Maggie accused a final time. Amy better not be pressing ‘snooze’ right now, she thought – and then she took back all the mental insults she had been preparing: the cabin descended into darkness and an alien electricity filled the air. Emma put a hand quickly on Maggie’s shoulder and searched her face, though Maggie avoided her gaze. She hoped desperately she hadn’t wrongfully accused the demon; that probably wouldn’t end well.  
But instead of a deep chuckle and a dark swirl rising from the floor, there was a high whine that started as something reminiscent of a gnat in your ear and grew louder and more irritating to the senses until Maggie and Emma were forced to cover their ears. Then, all at once, a bright flash cracked in the space before them and they found themselves face to face with a tall being, surrounded on all sides and almost coated in this bright white light that burned their retinas like a flashlight someone shines in your face. The being was clothed all in white, in a long, satiny robe-like garment with chains dripping from its neck like golden tears. Maggie tried to glimpse its face, but the light was too bright and the being too intimidating to risk staring straight-on. Bending, the being opened its mouth to speak. Emma closed her eyes.  
“Do not be afraid,” it said, voice light like a bird’s and just as feathery. Maggie wanted to touch it, but felt like that would be too weird. Instead, she just lifted her gaze slowly until she regarded its face: round and high-boned, with silver eyes and eyebrows that were hardly there at all. Maggie gulped and dropped her gaze. “I am the angel Ophiel.”


	5. Do Angels Exist?

Emma’s eyes sprung open and she gasped. To see a demon in all her glory was one thing, but an angel was something completely different. The angel – Ophiel, the name rolled around in her mind like a porcelain ball – raised itself to its full height and gazed majestically down its nose at the two girls. Maggie’s breathing was a little shaky.  
“I asked for Amy,” she whispered, feeling so terribly wrong for criticizing an angel. (An angel!!!)  
“I know,” Ophiel replied, voice quiet. “But I needed to speak to you.”  
“Why?” Emma’s voice was soft as she dared to question the motives of a messenger of God. But the angel didn’t scoff or scowl or anything – no, all it did was tilt its head a little to the side and keep its metallic gaze steady.  
“You have transgressed the laws of the Earthly domain,” Ophiel declared as if announcing the birth of Christ.  
“What?” Maggie breathed. She knew she’d messed up a lot – everyone does – but, surely this angel wasn’t here to talk about that? Was it about the trip to Hell? That wasn’t really their fault, though – was it? Oh, s---.  
“You have brought a soul back with you from the Pit. That is forbidden, and I must command that you either bring him back yourselves or inform me as to his whereabouts so I may do the same. It is of the utmost importance.”  
Emma dazedly thought that it was fortunate the angel hadn’t come to reprimand them about their ‘sinful behaviors’ because then she just might have to awkwardly explain to an angel why she doesn’t believe it exists.  
“But – we didn’t know, how do we – what do you mean, ‘we brought a soul with us’?”  
“When you entered the Pit – a transgression great enough by itself,” Ophiel reminded them coldly. “A soul followed you, and when you left, he left as well.”  
“So – what do we do?” asked Maggie, nervously waiting for the inevitable ‘burn forever in Hell’ that the angel would decree.  
“As I said, you must return him to Hell or notify me of his whereabouts so I may do the same.”  
Maggie blinked, mental gears turning much slower than normal, but turning nonetheless. Why would God need them to tell Him where the ‘lost soul’ was?  
“Hang on,” she interrupted, holding a hand up. “How come you need us to tell you where this – soul – is? Why can’t you just use your ‘Godly Powers’ or whatever to figure it out?”  
Ophiel had not responded much to the interruption, having already been finished speaking. However, they seemed to chafe somewhat at Maggie’s tasteless assumptions. “I apologize,” they started in a somewhat sarcastic tone. “I was unaware you were so poorly informed.”  
Maggie’s frown deepened.  
“As I am not God,” Ophiel continued. “I do not have ‘Godly Powers,’ as you so aptly put them. Though, as an Angel of the Lord, I do have Powers beyond those possessed by humans. I cannot, however, locate persons without first being exposed to an item which they have previously possessed.”  
“Like a bloodhound?” Emma offered.  
Ophiel simply blinked and ignored her. “Since I was sent on such an immediate basis, I was unable to fully prepare myself for the assignment. If I had had enough time, I would not have needed to contact you at all, much less ask for your assistance.”  
Maggie wondered when angels had ever been this annoyed in the Bible, ‘cause she certainly hadn’t ever heard of it.  
“It is crucial that we restore the soul to his rightful position below, or the consequences will be very severe. The last time a soul escaped from Perdition was just over two thousand years ago, and I doubt this one has the same claim to Holiness as his predecessor.”  
“Who?”  
“The soul’s name is Leonard Chesterfield, and he died two days ago.”  
“No, I mean, who was his predecessor?” Maggie clarified.  
“Jesus the Christ,” Ophiel enunciated with no small amount of pride.  
“Oh.”  
“Indeed.”  
“So,” Emma began. “How do we, uh, return Mr. Chesterfield to Hell, then? We just tried opening another portal and you can see how far we got.” Emma gestured to the very-much intact floor underneath Ophiel’s feet.  
“That would depend on whether you have contacted that demon again.” Ophiel’s gaze grew sharper as they tried to frighten out the details of Maggie and Emma’s relations with all demon-kind.  
“Which demon?” Maggie queried, interested to know whether an angel would speak a demon’s name. They might not have the same fears, but then they may fear that particular thing more.  
“The one you contacted the night previously and who escorted you through the different circles of the Pit,” Ophiel stated dryly. “Have you contacted multiple ones?”  
“No,” Emma hastily blurted out. Ophiel’s stare remained penetrating and severe as they regarded Emma, then they looked away and Emma heart started once more.  
“I’m sorry, Mr. – Ms. – uh, Ophiel,” Maggie faltered. “But I don’t – I don’t know anything about what you’re talking about. I just – how do you know this guy is with us?”  
“I can see him.”  
“Then why can’t you figure out where he is?”  
“He left as soon as he saw me come,” Ophiel deadpanned.  
Emma groaned and tossed her head into her hands. This was getting ridiculous.  
“Okay, so let me get this straight: we need to find this Chesterfield guy and return him to Hell – which we don’t know how to do, by the way – and then you’ll show up and – what – reward us? Why do we have to be involved in this at all?”  
Ophiel’s sigh was very patient, considering. “The soul is connected to those who raised him. He may run, but he will be unable to resist the pull of you two.”  
“But we can’t see him.”  
“And you can,” Maggie said, coming to Emma’s aid quickly. “So can’t you come with us if we have to do this?”  
Ophiel blinked, considering. Then, they spoke.  
“I do not see why not,” they hazarded. “However, there would need to be rules.”  
“Hey, wait a minute!” Emma interrupted. “This conversation is getting all over the place. What – specifically – are you doing here and what – again, specifically – do we have to do? And,” she added, with a glance at Maggie. “Do I have to do?”  
Maggie opened her mouth, then paused to let Ophiel speak.   
“No, you go ahead,” they protested.   
Maggie then thanked them and started explaining to Emma.  
“Okay, the angel is here because while we were getting up from Hell, we accidentally brought Mr. Chesterfield dude back with us and now he’s run away. I guess that’s why I felt weird, right?” Ophiel nodded. “Cool. Glad that’s cleared up – anyway: he’s run away and we need to find him, I think, and bring him back to Hell. Ophiel can come with us, because he can actually, like, see this guy. Correct?” Ophiel nodded again. “Good. Got it, Emma?”  
“Yeah, thanks. Now I just gotta tell my parents I’m gonna ditch this dumb camp and run away with a friend I met a couple weeks ago and an angel that just – showed up.”  
“Quit being so sarcastic, Emma.”  
Emma sighed petulantly. “Fine. When are we leaving?”  
Checking her watch, Maggie mentioned, “It’s just about eleven forty-five, so how ‘bout we grab some lunch, and then go?”  
“Okay.”  
“That cool with you, Ophiel?”  
The angel’s hands folded serenely behind its back. “I have no objections. How much sustenance do you two require?”  
“Oh, we can just go to the camp lunch,” Emma objected.  
“That is unnecessary, and I wish to make it up to you for my unpleasant behavior. Please, let me.”  
Maggie and Emma shared a look, then silently agreed that Yeah, sure, they could have an angel take them out to lunch.  
“Yeah, sure,” they said, getting up off the bed. “Uh, do you know any places around here – you know what, how are we even going to – we don’t have a car...”  
“Angels do not need cars,” Ophiel reminded them, a little didactically. “Take my hands.”  
They then offered a hand to both Maggie and Emma, and the two girls cautiously took them. The angel’s hands were cooler to the touch than human hands and were smooth, without callouses. Ophiel closed his fingers over the girls’ hands and closed their eyes.  
Unlike the portal to Hell, transporting with Ophiel was like sliding into a warm bathtub: a warmth emanated from their fingertips and encompassed you until you lost the sensations of the world around you, and when you found your feet back on the ground, reality came back in like waking up from a midday nap to a warm fire and cup of tea, with a blanket draped over you as you cuddle up on the couch. Emma found it exceedingly pleasant. Ophiel didn’t even drop their hands as soon as possible; rather, he held onto them for a beat longer and let them slip away of their own volition.  
They had ‘landed’ in the middle of a Wal-Mart parking lot, and several cars were pulling into spaces beside them. Nobody seemed to notice the group of people who just appeared out of nowhere, but then again, this was Wal-Mart. Maggie let go of Ophiel’s hand slowly, almost reluctantly, and then startled, unused to craving such intimate physical contact. She brushed her hand on her shorts and then shoved them in her pockets.  
“So,” she said bluntly. “Food.”  
She led them inside. Ophiel was entirely lost in this strange world of artificial lights and waxed linoleum floor tiles. Maggie wandered around the fruit for a while, then left Emma there with Ophiel while she herself went on to the pre-packaged meals section. To be frank, she didn’t really know what she wanted to eat, and she didn’t really know how much to get. This could be just lunch, or this could be one of the last meals they had before starting on a lean trek through the woods in Western Pennsylvania. How far could souls even travel? Would they be getting meals regularly? Did Ophiel have a general idea of where they should start? These questions knocked on the door of her mind with such insistence that the individual packs of lunchables and American cheese blended together into one mass of unhealthy but calorically dense sustenance.  
Emma was busy picking out a nice bunch of bananas and a package of strawberries that didn’t look too unripe. Ophiel glanced at a container of blueberries and analyzed them from different angles. He set the blueberries down, then, and folded his hands behind his back again, watching as Emma selected her food. Maggie wandered back over with a bag of white bread and some peanut butter and jelly, as well as a box of plastic cutlery – the cheapest stuff she could find that would make a meal for the three of them. She had considered getting baloney and cheese, but given that Emma was a vegetarian, that wouldn’t have worked very well.  
Emma looked up as Maggie walked over, bag of bread slung over one shoulder and PB&J held awkwardly in the other hand, the box of knives balanced on top of them.  
“You got those?” Emma asked, offering to take some of the things Maggie was carrying.  
“If you could carry the knives, that’d be great, thanks.” Emma took the knives off of Maggie and carried them along with the fruit she’d picked out. There was a pause as they remembered they hadn’t bothered to select anything for Ophiel – not that there’d be a shortage of food, but they didn’t really know what she liked to eat, or whether she even did eat…  
“Uh,” Maggie began awkwardly. “Do you want anything, Ophiel?”  
Ophiel raised their eyebrows and looked at the assortment of foodstuffs that Maggie and Emma had collected.  
“Angels do not need food,” they reminded the girls. “But thank you for thinking of me.”  
The girls smiled at the angel. “Not at all.”  
The group then made their way around the not-very-efficiently-laid-out store to the checkout, where they set their items down on the conveyor belt. Maggie suddenly stepped in front of Ophiel and pulled out her wallet. Ophiel attempted to push past her, but Maggie blocked them with her shoulder.  
“No, I got this, really,” she insisted. “You don’t even have any money.”  
“But I wished to treat you two,” Ophiel protested.  
“Doesn’t matter. Person with the money pays,” Maggie retorted as she handed over a twenty-dollar bill to the cashier, who was wearily chewing some gum as he scratched at his cheek. The cashier collected the money and gave Maggie her change – seven sixty-eight – and then handed her and Emma the bags. Ophiel was left to stand, ostensibly the ‘adult in charge’ but in reality more useless than anything else.  
Walking out the two sets of sliding double-doors, Emma looked around the area. “Doesn’t look like there’s a very good place to eat,” she commented, noticing the lack of benches or grassy patches in the parking lot, which was surrounded by other parking lots in a sort of commercial shopping center.  
“We can just eat on one of those curb things cars park in front of, you know what I mean?” Maggie asked Emma.  
“Yeah, okay,” Emma replied, nodding.  
They walked over, angel in tow, and sat down on one of those ‘curb things.’ Ophiel stood over them, watching for any cars coming. Emma popped open the container of strawberries and plucked one out, sliding the whole thing in her mouth, stem and all, which caused Maggie to grimace at her.  
“Why do you eat the whole thing?”  
Emma just shrugged. Maggie pulled out the bread, peanut butter, and jelly and opened them each, pulling off the covering from the peanut butter jar and sticking it in one of the plastic bags. She then popped the lip open on the jelly and grabbed a plastic knife.  
“How many sandwiches do you want, Emma?” Maggie asked, smearing peanut butter.  
“Uh, two?”  
“Okay.”  
Maggie made the sandwiches and handed them off to Emma, who tried to keep them from touching anything gross while also picking out choice strawberries. Maggie finished up with the sandwich supplies and chomped on her own, looking blandly out at the asphalt ocean before them. Ophiel was still standing over them, their hands folded in front of them and watching for anything ‘bad.’  
“Hey,” Maggie called out to him. “You sure you don’t want anything?”  
Ophiel nodded serenely. “I do not require it, and it would be ungracious of me to deprive you of your necessary sustenance.”  
“We don’t need all of it,” Emma put in around a large bit of sandwich.  
“Still, I must insist.”  
“Alright,” Maggie conceded. “Your loss.”  
She and Emma ate their sandwiches quietly as people walked past, none of them bothering to spare more than a glance for the incongruous group of an angel and two demon-fraternizing humans.  
Ophiel, while keeping half his attention on protecting the little girls seated in front of him, gazed up at the sky, with its gathering clouds and several birds streaming across as dark silhouettes. He tried to make out an airplane that flew past, but couldn’t quite recognize the pilot in the cockpit. He looked back down to the girls.  
“You done?” Maggie asked Emma, offering to take her banana peel.  
“Yeah, thanks.” Maggie put it in the bag she’d put the peanut-butter jar covering in.  
“We should probably go somewhere with a roof soon,” Maggie suggested, rising and helping Emma up. “It looks about to rain.”  
“Indeed,” agreed Ophiel, taking the bag of food away from Emma while Maggie walked over to a trashcan by the Wal-Mart entrance and tossed the trash away. Emma took a moment to stare unabashedly at Ophiel, whom she thought endlessly fascinating in appearance, though still a little frightening. It was as if you had never heard of people taller than five foot ten, and you suddenly saw a six food four man walk past: Ophiel was physically just – different. Then, Maggie walked back over and Emma ceased her ogling.  
“Ready?” Maggie asked. Emma replied in the affirmative, and they set off, walking in the direction of the nearest shelter: a Sunoco with an attached A-Plus mini-mart.  
The door opened with a jingle caused by a little silver bell attached to the corner of the door-frame. The kid at the register – probably just around Emma and Maggie’s age – looked up from his magazine, then back down. There wasn’t really a need to pay much attention to them, especially when their reason for entering was so obvious: just as they had closed the door behind them, the water had started coming down. Emma, trying to decipher where, exactly, they were, found it interesting that it took about forty-five minutes for the rain to start here, while it had started much earlier back at the cabin.  
Maggie was wandering the narrow isles of the mini-mart, hands shoved in her back pockets and not intending to spend any more cash. Ophiel had the Wal-Mart bag dangling from his wrist and he followed Maggie, watching to see if she had a purpose in doing this or if she was just bored. Emma leaned her back against the counter with the register.  
“So,” she opened, trying to sound cheerful. The kid looked up from his magazine and regarded Emma with a bland, bespectacled gaze. “You got any, uh, maps here?”  
The kid pulled out an old, very thumbed-over road map that was probably made in the 1980’s. He slid it over the counter to her and turned back to his magazine without so much as a grunt.  
“Thanks!” Emma chirped, trying not to be petty about it. “I’ll give it back in just a sec.”  
She opened up the map and tried to think of landmarks around them. There was the Wal-Mart, and if you looked through the trees you could sort of see a highway. Okay. Then there was this shopping center, and beyond that, in the opposite direction of the highway, was a hill. Great. So much for landmarks.  
Maggie wandered over from the racks of cigarettes. “What’cha got there?”  
Emma turned so she and Maggie could regard the map at the same time.  
“Oh, cool – a map,” Maggie responded, peering over Emma’s shoulder.  
“But how are we gonna find anything if we don’t know where we are?” Emma prodded.  
“We could ask the kid,” suggested Maggie, jerking a thumb to the aforementioned, who was pretending not to listen to their conversation as he watched Ophiel flicked through the tabloids.  
“Excuse me,” Maggie said, walking over to the counter. “Could you show us where we are?” Emma walked over with the map. “We’re from out of town and we can’t seem to locate our – location.”  
The kid leaned forward and pointed a bony finger at the junction of two highways on the western-most edge of Pennsylvania, right by the little town of Prosperity. “Right about there,” he said, voice gravelly from lack of use, then leaned back into his little cove.  
“Thanks, man.” Maggie and Emma then moved to stand by the doors, trying to orient themselves with the highways and the map and all that. Ophiel abandoned the tabloids and relocated to the fridge cases, examining the different varieties of neon drinks. They opened one of the doors, took out a Powerade, and cracked the lid. The kid, who had been watching them nervously the entire time, then stood up quickly.  
“Hey! Sir – sir, you can’t do that!” The kid moved out from behind the counter to go stop Ophiel, who was now taking a drink of the Powerade with a tight grimace on their pale countenance. Maggie, quickly taking advantage of the situation, left Emma with the map and dashed behind the register, opening it as quietly as possible – it still gave off a little ding that had the kid looking over to her, tied between stopping Ophiel from opening all the products and Maggie from looting the register – and shoved a couple twenties in her pockets, running away from there before the kid could turn around. She shoved Emma out the door and called out to Ophiel. She was outside and running quicker than the kid could get to the register.  
“Maggie, what the h---?!” Emma shouted, running but very confused. “What did you – why?”  
Maggie, grin plastered all over her freckled face, just shook her head and ran. Ophiel left the store quickly, long legs running gangly like Leonard Nimoy’s Spock and caught up with them fairly soon.  
“Is there a reason why we are committing petty crimes now?” Ophiel called out to Maggie, stumbling after her with Emma. The angel couldn’t really see the point of stealing such a small amount of cash, especially when it didn’t seem like it had an obvious way of helping them in their search for Chesterfield. Maggie gave them no answer, though, and the angel was left to consider her motives by themself.  
Maggie dashed behind a Shop ‘n Save, climbing over a gate that led to the deliveries entrance. Emma scrambled over the gate, too, taking slightly longer but making it just in time to see Maggie dip underneath a low archway and head back out of the deliveries area and into a scrubby bit of brush that was flanked on two sides with shopping centers and led, on the third side, to a small, man-made pond, which further led into the deep Pennsylvania woods surrounding the highways. The girls and angel ran to the brushy area and Maggie paused, only for a moment, before skirting the edges of the pond. There was a minor hiccup in her plan, however, when she realized that there was no way to get to the woods without getting her feet wet. Glancing at her two companions, she slipped her shoes and socks off and signaled for them to do the same, before wading into the most likely very gross water.  
Emma didn’t really think about following Maggie to the woods. She had her shoes off and legs knee-deep in the pond before you had time to say ‘Mississippi.’ Ophiel didn’t hesitate, either, though Emma doubted if angels really cared about getting their hands – or feet, rather, in this instance – dirty. They did, however, pick up the hem of their robe and, if Emma had bothered to look back, she would have seen pressed white trousers beneath the flowing silk robe.  
The water soaked into all of their shoes, but the repetitive pounding of their soles against the oak-leaf riddled ground and against the roots escaping the muddy ground with a fierceness to rival Truth coming out of her well had them leaking the polluted water quicker than they normally would. It was, also, still raining. Maggie suddenly pulled up behind a tree and paused in her escape. Emma slowed, stumblingly, and stood, much less out of breath than Maggie, beside her friend.  
“Where are we?” asked Emma, pushing strands of her soaked hair out of her face. Maggie was similarly drenched, the water turning her white t-shirt nearly transparent. Emma was blushingly thankful that Maggie never skipped putting on a bra in the mornings.  
“About a mile from our original location,” mentioned Ophiel, coming to stand beside the girls. Their hair, which had been in something like a boxy pixie-cut when they had first appeared in the cabin, was now a drenched mop of silvery white. “Though of our exact longitude and latitude I am unsure.”  
“Oh, that’s fine. We really – it’s fine.”  
Ophiel dipped their head serenely. “I am glad to be of service.”  
“Thanks,” Maggie said, a little put aback. “But we still need to get out of the rain.”  
Emma shot Maggie her best bitch face. “We were out of the rain. That is, until someone decided to rob the d--- gas station!”  
“Oh, come on,” Maggie protested. “I only took, like, eighty bucks, Em.”  
“Doesn’t matter; it’s still a crime, idiot.”  
“Oh, shut your trap.”  
“No! We’re now not only apparently hitch-hiking across the country, but we’re also on the run from the cops!”  
“Keep your voice down!” Maggie hissed. Emma had tossed her hands up in the air to emphasize her point, and now shoved her fists on her hips. She huffed and scowled and did not look the least bit amused.  
“Maggie, I only have one question – just one: what the h---? Did you think I want to be running around in the town of Nowhere, Pennsylvania? Geez, man, the least you could do is, I don’t know, ask me before doing stupid-a-- things!”  
“Emma --”  
“No! I’m sick and tired of your bulls---! First you summon a demon – “  
“You summoned the demon!”  
“I didn’t know what would happen!”  
“That doesn’t matter!”  
“Excuse me,” Ophiel butted in. “But I do believe it would be more productive if we were to find some shelter from the rain instead of – shouting – at each other while getting more drenched.” The angel demurely wiped a sheet of water from their forehead. “If you don’t mind.”  
Maggie sighed, pursing her lips. “No, yeah – that’s fine. Where do you think we should head?”  
Emma bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut, only half-listening as Maggie and Ophiel discussed whether to head back to the shopping center or the trek onward through the muddy forest, possibly running into the highway while doing so. She didn’t really care where they went, so long as they could sit down somewhere and maybe grab a warm cup of coffee while they were at it – just because she didn’t approve of Maggie’s stealing didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate the benefits of it.  
“What do you think?” Maggie asked, and Emma realized she was talking to her when nobody spoke for a moment.  
“Oh,” started Emma. “Uh, I, uh – whatever, really.”  
Maggie then looked almost disappointed. “Okay. I vote we go forward through the forest because highways usually have little walkways just outside the guardrails for workers --”  
“No they don’t,” Emma interrupted.  
“They don’t?”  
“No, that’s totally fake. Where’d you hear that?”  
“Oh, uh – my mom,” Maggie admitted, embarrassed.  
“Well, it’s not true. It’s actually really hard to walk along a highway, ‘cause you’ve gotta walk on the side of the road and cars are zooming past you at, like, seventy miles an hour and you’re just trying to get a gas can filled or something and you don’t want to die, obviously, but this dumb-a-- old geezer can’t see for s--- so he’s swerving all over the fucking road and your thinking to yourself, ‘this is the end,’ you know, like, ‘I’m gonna die,’ but you’ve still gotta get your stupid gas can filled or else you’ll be stranded there forever and then – whoops! – that old geezer swerves just a little too much and splat – you’re gone and nobody’s there to watch over your two-year-old in the back seat so she’s just crying there and nobody knows what the h--- to do with her and forever she’s gonna be haunted by the thought that only if she hadn’t cried so much and made her dad leave the gas station without a full tank then maybe her daddy wouldn’t be a road pancake right now and she can’t ever walk on a road without thinking about it and now when her friends are like, ‘oh, walking on a highway is easy’ she’s like ‘f--- no, you idiots’ because she knows – she knows what it’s like to lose someone that way and to have you just flippantly brush it off like that really d--- hurts, so I’m sorry if I’ve been ranting or screaming at you, but I’m not happy and I don’t know when I’m next gonna eat or sleep in a bed or any f---ing normal thing, so don’t give me s---.”  
Maggie was silent, her brown eyes widened and melancholy with regret. She hadn’t realized – of course she hadn’t realized, she’d known Emma for a total of three weeks, okay? – and now she was getting called out for it, and even if it was totally valid of Emma to do that it just – it really stung, you know?  
“Look,” Maggie began. “I’m sorry for triggering you, okay? I just – where else are we supposed to walk? There isn’t, like, a perfect solution to this. We’ve just gotta deal with what we’ve got, okay?”  
Emma kept her eyes on the ground. The water was still running down the strands of her hair and she was getting some of it in her eyes. Remaining somewhat to the side, Ophiel lifted a hand to shield their eyes from the rain. Distantly the sound of car tires rubbing against wet asphalt floated through the stoic trees.  
Emma then turned to the angel, gaze not a small bit accusatory.  
“Can’t you take us somewhere else?”  
“Yes,” the angel replied blandly.  
Maggie and Emma heaved a collective sigh. “Then why didn’t you say something before?!”  
“I was under the impression you knew.”  
“How would we – you know what, never mind. Just get us out of here, okay?”  
“Is there any specific place you would like to go?” Ophiel asked politely, extending their hands to both of the girls. “It does not matter to me.”  
“Um. A coffee shop?” Emma suggested.  
“How about a hotel?” Maggie countered.  
“Ooh – a hotel with a coffee shop in the lobby!” trumped Emma, eyes bright with excitement at the prospect of a warm bed and a nice cup of coffee.  
Ophiel closed their eyes, and then their fingers over the hands of the girls. They whisked through a mental map of the World, filtering out other countries and places that seemed to seedy to be appropriate for this crowd. Finally, after only perhaps a nanosecond of time had passed, they nodded minutely and that strange warm sensation that came with angel-travel flooded over Maggie and Emma again. All that remained of their presence there were three pairs of footprints in the mud and a piece of lint that had fallen off of Emma’s sock.

* * *  
The little girl stuck her tongue out at one of the mirrors. Her reflection, bulging obscenely at the cheeks and shoulders, was comical, and, viewing it, she giggled. Her father was standing behind her and he smiled, also, at the amusing sight.  
“Daddy look!” The girl cried, moving to another mirror, one that stretched her vertically until she appeared nearly six feet tall. “I’m as tall as you!”  
Her father moved into the mirror’s range, thus adding his reflection, even more comically distorted, to the image. “Not anymore.”  
“Daddy!” she protested, shoving lightly at her father’s hip. “Get out of my mirror!”  
“It isn’t your mirror, baby,” her father chuckled, nonetheless moving out of the mirror’s range and letting his daughter amuse herself.  
“Ehhhh,” the girl moaned, hanging her mouth open at the mirror. The man let a grin split his face as he watched her goofing around. Another woman walked by with a toddler in her arms and the man smiled at her as she passed. She set the toddler down at the exit of the House of Mirrors and she ran forward, towards the candy-apple display. The man turned his gaze back towards his daughter, and noticed she wasn’t there. His heart dropped.  
“Baby?” he called, heading quickly behind another bend in the House’s pathway. His little girl was just a little bit ahead of him, making more weird faces at the mirrors. He took a deep breath and moved up behind her, placing a paternal hand on her shoulder.  
“Baby, don’t just go ahead like that, okay?” he instructed. “You gotta tell me where you’re going.”  
“Alright, Daddy,” she said, smiling angelically up at him. He smiled back.  
* * *

When they found their footing again, the girls found themselves in a rather cramped hallway with about three different supply closets leading off from it. At the end of the hall, though, was a bright lobby with large glass windows and a smartly dressed receptionist seated behind the desk, his round glasses complementing his more angular face in a way that Maggie found aesthetically pleasing. She looked around herself, then moved towards the lobby, Emma at her side and Ophiel following. As she took in her surroundings, she noticed that it wasn’t raining anymore outside – though, given that she didn’t know exactly where they were, it might have never been raining in the first place here.   
The receptionist had a phone against his ear and was taking notes on a pad of paper as Maggie walked up, leaning her elbows against what looked like black granite.  
“Excuse me,” she said after he had finished on the phone. “Do you have any rooms available?”  
“Several. What sort are you looking for?”  
“Uh,” Maggie tallied up her companions. “Three beds?”  
“Any other specifics?” the receptionist asked, smiling with a cool and polished ease.  
“Um,” Maggie paused, turning to Emma for help. Emma just shook her head with a tiny motion and offered an awkward half-smile.  
“No, that’s good. Thanks.”  
“Mhm,” the receptionist responded with the same cool manner, moving to flip through a manila folder filled with laminated pages. Maggie licked her lips and swallowed nervously.  
“What’s your price range? We have three-bed rooms from five twenty-nine to nine-hundred.”  
“Uh . . .” Maggie’s throat closed up. “What?”  
The receptionist didn’t bat an eye and repeated the information for her.  
“Oh, um, the five twenty-nine one, I guess.”  
“Okay. I’m assuming you’d like that now?” He slid the manila folder back into some hidden drawer and faced Maggie formally, eye contact impersonal and professional.  
“Yes, please.”  
The receptionist then produced two key-cards and slid them across the counter’s surface to Maggie, careful not to let his two fingers lift from the keys too soon or to let them touch Maggie’s outstretched hand. Emma thought briefly that they could just make a vending machine for this sort of thing instead of paying some robot to do it for them.  
“Thanks,” said Maggie weakly as she took the keys.  
“Of course,” the receptionist answered, settling himself back in his chair and signaling quietly that the conversation was over. Maggie retreated from the desk, feeling rather like Bertie Wooster after meeting with his Aunt Agatha, and handing one of the key-cards off to Emma as they made their way to the elevator.


	6. You Break It, You Buy It

The hallway on the sixth floor of the hotel was coated in a long line of red-and-white-speckled carpet that had tried to sneak its way into the rooms, only to fall prey to that great defeater, fatigue, and lay themselves down in a neat, orderly fashion. Maggie’s wet shoes squished as she walked and she felt a little bad about tracking water into this prime display of habitat for the upper class on vacation.  
She found their door, number 665, and was glad – exceedingly so – that they hadn’t been placed directly across the hall, in the room that Ophiel was giving such a wide berth to as they came over to stand beside Emma and Maggie. The key-card she slid into the door handle lit up a little green light and the door unlocked with a click. Maggie opened the door and passed through it into the most lavish hotel room she had ever seen, and which wasn’t even the best this hotel could offer, given the prices the receptionist had offered.  
Directly as one entered the room, they found themselves in a wide hallway somewhat reminiscent of the one they had just exited. To the left, a large bathroom could be seen, complete with jacuzzi tub and two sinks. To the right, a curving room looked out, with a floor-to-ceiling window in the far end, on a flowering garden directly below and – was that the Golden Gate bridge? Maggie pushed past Emma into the master bedroom, moving to stand with her fingertips pressed against the immaculate glass of the window.  
“So this is where we are,” she murmured, gazing out at the entire scene spread before her. Emma came up behind her, equally amazed.  
“Wow,” was her only comment.  
Ophiel watched the two human girls ogle the sunny landscape outside for a moment, then moved back into the room’s hallway. Past the two rooms immediately inside the door, the hallway continued and opened into a second bedroom. The bedroom contained two double beds separated by a glossy mahogany night-table with the customary black LED alarm clock and double-lamp fixture with outlets. Ophiel did not bother the check the table’s single drawer, though they thought it highly likely that there was a Bible labeled internally with the Gideon’s symbol hidden within.  
Besides the beds and bedside table, there was a three-drawer bureau with a television mounted on the wall above it and a sliding door out to the secondary balcony, which led out to the opposite side of the building than the master bedroom’s did. (Not that the girls had figured out yet that the window was a door, that is.) Ophiel found the soft doe color of the walls soothing to their eyes and appreciated the heavy draperies covering the sliding window, having been worried about the possibility of thin curtains and peeping-Toms.   
After having perused the room sufficiently, the angel moved along to the end of the hallway, which led out into the final room: the kitchen. Ophiel ran their hand along the countertop, which, to their perception, seemed to be of stainless steel. There was a couch and a love-seat, each with throw pillows artfully tossed on them in complementing colors. There was also another television, making three in total, and a DVD/Blu-ray combination player. Given that this room was not at the end of the hall, the kitchen didn’t have a long, sweeping window of its own; however, there were smaller ones at the left and right walls that let in the bright sunlight coming from off the coast.  
Emma pulled her gaze away from the bridge and coastline and city and – well, everything – and noticed a balcony outside the window. She wondered momentarily if it was just for decoration, then dismissed the thought as she found a handle on the edge of the great windowpane.  
“Hey, move,” she instructed Maggie, pulling the window open and reveling in the tendrils of warm air that entered the room. The weather was not overly hot, though it was considerably more temperate than where they had just been in the mountains of Pennsylvania.  
“Oh, sweet!” Maggie exclaimed as she stepped out after Emma onto the balcony. She rested her forearms on the thick black railing. “Wow.”  
“I know. But how are we gonna pay for this?”  
“Eh,” Maggie waved away Emma’s worry with a swish of her hand. “We’ll talk about that later. Just enjoy the view.”  
Emma leaned against the railing beside Maggie and let the breeze carry her ponytail over her left shoulder.  
Inside, Ophiel was opening the fridge door, placing the jar of jam inside. They had taken the food bag off of Emma just before she had rushed to the window. The peanut-butter was on the counter and the bread was sitting beside it. The bananas were still in the bag, and Ophiel pulled them out gently and placed them beside the other foodstuffs on the counter. They neatly folded the plastic bag and set it down. Ophiel then left the kitchen side of the room and moved over to the love-seat, sitting down and pulling up their feet to sit cross-legged. They closed their eyes and began to meditate.  
Below the primary balcony, a couple of people were meandering down the sidewalks. One woman ran with a dog. The light reflected near-painfully off of the water by the Bay, and Maggie squinted at it fiercely, refusing to let herself be forced to look away. Emma placed a hand over her eyes, shading them.  
“This is nice,” Emma mentioned, pensively. “But we still have no idea what we’ll be doing.”  
“True.”  
“Doesn’t that bother you?”  
“Eh, I’ve had worse.” Maggie turned away from the scene and leaned her back on the railings. She folded her arms across her chest and glanced at Emma.  
“Like what? Homework?”  
“Like my dad just taking me to Dallas and leaving me there with my younger brother while he went back to his meeting in Detroit. Apparently I have an aunt and uncle in Dallas, but, y’know.” Maggie shrugged. “Hard to find people when you’re twelve and Dallas is like, four-hundred square miles.”  
Emma cursed quietly. “Your dad really left you there?”  
“Yep. But, y’know – character building.”  
“Mm.” Emma paused. “Do you think we’ll find this Chesterfield guy?”  
Maggie shrugged.  
“Do you care?”  
“Eh, not really,” Maggie admitted, without much emotion. “This angel dude can just flutter away, for all I care.”  
Emma lowered her voice. “Is he a dude, though?”  
“I don’t know, maybe? Honestly, I can’t tell.”  
“Hm. Then again, angels might not have, like, genders and stuff.”  
“Good point.” Maggie sighed. “We should go talk to him – them – whatever. Figure out what the game plan is, y’know?”  
“Yeah.”  
Emma reached over and pulled the window open again. They stepped back onto the carpet of the master bedroom.  
“Hey, Ophiel?” Maggie called, ducking around the corner of the hallway. “Where you at?”  
Ophiel’s pearly head was nowhere in sight. Maggie huffed and turned to Emma, offering her friend a quick shrug. Emma walked down the hall to the kitchen.  
“Ophiel?” she called. “You in here?” Emma looked around, half-thinking that Ophiel might be in the bathroom, when she caught sight of the angel sitting serenely on the love-seat. As Maggie came into the kitchen, Emma pointed at where Ophiel was.  
“Found ‘em.”  
“Cool,” Maggie replied. “Is he sleeping?”  
Emma walked over and poked Ophiel cautiously on the shoulder. The angel didn’t move.  
“Uh...” Emma shot Maggie a concerned glance. “Hopefully not dead?”  
“Geez,” Maggie muttered under her breath. She walked around the love-seat to stand in front of Ophiel. The angel’s eyes were closed and they weren’t moving, but the silk-clad shoulders did seem to rise a little as if they were breathing. Did angels breathe? Maggie didn’t know, and didn’t ever really think she would ever need to know – and yet here she was.  
“Ophiel?” She placed a hand on their shoulder. “Ophiel, can you hear me?”  
Ophiel’s eyelids raised about halfway and their metallic gaze pierced the center of Maggie’s t-shirt. “Yes.”  
Maggie sighed somewhat dramatically, but she didn’t really care if she was putting on too much theatrics – this was ridiculous!  
“This is ridiculous!” She cried, tossing her hands in the air and turning away from Ophiel in her frustration. “Seriously? Is this your idea of a prank, or something?”  
Ophiel unfolded their legs and placed their feet squarely on the ground. Their eyes opened fully and they seemed to come out of their meditative state.  
“No,” they responded calmly to Maggie’s accusations.  
“Then what the – “ Maggie caught herself just before cussing in front of an angel. One has to have one’s morals, after all. “Heck – are you doing? Sitting? I thought we were supposed to be chasing this guy, and then you go and whisk us away to San freaking Francisco and we’re supposed to – what? – just take it? Dude, I don’t know where we are, what we’re doing, or when I’m going to get to change my shirt! We have no plan! This is even worse planning than a horror movie, man! If we just go chasing after angry souls, we’re going to die.”  
Maggie glared at Ophiel and spit her words like venom. Ophiel did not react, though, just kept their infuriatingly placid gaze locked with Maggie’s.  
“You are frustrated,” they stated. Maggie almost screamed.  
“You think?!” She squeaked, barely containing her rage.  
“Hm.” The angel lowered their gaze and folded their hands in thought. “I apologize. I did not think it necessary to inform you of the plan of procedure.”  
A weight seemed to lift off of Maggie’s heavy shoulders. “You have a plan of procedure?” she repeated hopefully.  
“No,” Ophiel refuted. “I was composing one just now. It is nearly finished.”  
“Okay,” Emma interrupted. “I just need to say something. Maggie, you’re right: this is ridiculous, unacceptable, and somewhat terrifying. Ophiel. . .” Emma faltered, gesturing at the angel as if to show their blatant incompetence. “You need to stop this.”  
Ophiel’s nearly-clear brow did not furrow. “Stop what?”  
“This just – taking us away and not telling us stuff and giving us these missions and –“ Emma searched for the words. “Just – I want to go home. To be honest, I don’t really care about this lost soul, okay? I was fine with just finishing up camp and then getting home and starting senior year in a couple weeks, okay? That’s life for me, not this – soul chasing.”  
Maggie nodded a little in agreement.  
“Can we please go home?” Emma pleaded, coming around to stand in front of the angel and meet their gaze. “This stuff is all nice, okay, but we can’t pay for this hotel – even with the rewards of kleptomania,” she added, giving Maggie a little amused glance. “Please.”  
“Yeah. Ophiel, we just – we can’t do this.”  
The angel regarded the two girls who had finally cracked: the one without a father and the one with a father who did not care: the orphan and the thief. Ophiel felt a cool obligation of compassion towards these two helpless teenagers. They really didn’t have anyone else to turn to, alone and disoriented in a strange city across the country from where they were this morning. The angel pursed their lips and stood, passing between Maggie and Emma and moving to stand with their back to the kitchen counter.  
“You may leave – in the morning.”  
“Why not now?” Maggie hazarded, an unpleasant thought making its way into her head. No, no, no – angels weren’t like that. But there were those fallen angels, right? Maggie sent a quick little prayer off, begging God to not let – that – happen.  
“I require your services,” Ophiel stated, matter-of-fact.  
Maggie’s heart dropped to her shoes. She glimpsed Emma out of the corner of her eyes, similarly nervous.  
“Uh,” Maggie started, voice unsteady. “What sort of services?”  
Ophiel tilted their head to the side. “Your memory. What were you supposing?”  
“Oh, nothing,” Maggie said hurriedly. “Just – nothing.”  
Ophiel narrowed their eyes a fraction, yet did not speak.  
“What do you need with our memories? Can’t we just tell you everything we know?” Emma queried. “It can’t take that long.”  
“I will need to possess you momentarily and delve into your subconscious to access the memories. Since I am not entirely sure of what I am looking for, it will take a considerable amount of time – especially because I will be dealing with both of you.”  
Emma and Maggie shared a hesitant glance.  
“Okay? But, um, what’s the – the plan?” Emma asked. “The, uh, the plan of procedure, or whatever?”  
“Ah, yes; the plan.”  
“The plan,” Maggie repeated.  
“Yes, the plan.”  
Maggie raised her eyebrows. “The plan?”  
“The plan.”  
Emma sighed. “What is the plan?”  
“It must be modified, now that I know of your intention to leave,” Ophiel explained. “I apologize for the inconvenience.”  
“Okay, well, we can help with a plan, you know. We’re not, like, completely useless,” Maggie pointed out.  
“Yeah,” Emma agreed. “Like, do we know how far Chesterfield could have gotten? Do we know how he could hide? Do we know anything useful about this situation? ‘Cause I’ve been getting the impression that we’re all totally unprepared.”  
“Me too.”  
“Well,” Ophiel began. “Souls cannot travel more than one-hundred miles from those that brought them up from the Pit, so we will never have to travel very far. In fact, I am almost certain that Mr. Chesterfield was not expecting such a sudden relocation so soon.”  
“Okay,” said Emma, shifting on her feet. “What else?”  
“Souls can hide to all but those of the Heavenly order.”  
“So, angels?” tried Emma.  
“And demons and the Lord,” corrected Ophiel.  
“Well, yeah,” Maggie pointed out. “Obviously.”  
Ophiel smiled.  
“Anything else?” Emma prompted.  
“Souls typically despise being immersed in water.”  
“So we should just hop on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean and wait for the soul dude to crawl on-board?” Maggie suggested.  
Ophiel blinked. “Yes.”  
“Wait, really?” Maggie appeared taken-aback.  
“Yes,” Ophiel emphasized. “It is a very intelligent idea.”  
“Oh.” Maggie blushed. “Thanks.”  
Emma smirked over at her friend. Pretty cool to get a complement from an angel, eh?  
“Okay, but – hold on. Then why do you need to go through our memories?” Maggie asked.  
“To know what Mr. Chesterfield looks like,” Ophiel stated patiently.  
“Oh. Duh. Sorry.”  
“There is no need to apologize,” Ophiel said pleasantly, pushing away from the counter and moving to place a hand on Maggie’s shoulder. “You are not doing anything wrong.”  
“Anything?” Maggie tested, half in jest.  
“Anything.” Ophiel’s inhuman eyes imparted a strange but not uncomfortable warmth to Maggie’s typically cold, hard psyche. She shifted her shoulder and Ophiel removed their hand.  
“I believe you wanted coffee?” The angel asked, turning to Emma. “I could get some while you relax.”  
“Oh,” started Emma, a happy little smile creeping onto her face. “Thanks, yeah. I like it black with two sweeteners, by the way.”  
Ophiel nodded, then asked Maggie if she would like anything.  
“Thanks, but I’m good. To be honest, I’m just really tired.”  
“Me too.” Emma grinned wearily at Maggie. Those beds were practically singing to her at this point.  
“I shall get your coffee, Emma, while you relax. Maggie, perhaps it would be best if you were to sleep?” Ophiel instructed the two, seeming older than their fresh-faced appearance would have one assume.  
“Okay.”  
Ophiel then left, closing the door quietly behind themself.  
Emma went and sat, slumped, on the couch. She leaned heavily on the armrest and let her eyelids droop a little.   
Maggie left her and retreated to the second bedroom and sat down on the edge of one of the beds. She pulled her wet shoes off and set them somewhat neatly down on the floor by the bed. Her socks were wet, too, so she stripped them off. Then, she climbed up to the head of the bed and dipped herself under the heavy covers. The pillow was just fluffy enough to mold to her head without being suffocating, and the sleep-deprivation of the night before caught up to Maggie gloriously: she fell asleep.  
Emma was half-way there, sitting on the couch. She had half a mind to wait for the coffee, but she didn’t think she’d last that long. So, she slid down the couch, resting her head on one of the decorative throw pillows and sinking into the plush cushions. The coffee could wait.


	7. Flattery Will Get You Everywhere

When Ophiel brought Emma’s coffee up, he saw her sleeping on the couch and left the cardboard cup on the coffee table, thinking to themself how appropriately named the piece of furniture was. The angel then collected a large, drooping comforter out of the master bedroom and draped it across the girl. They quietly removed themself to the master bedroom and sat on the bed, composing a plan.  
The first problem that occurred to Ophiel was that of time. They didn’t have much of it as it was, and the girls couldn’t just keep going without sleep or food or other basic human needs. How long would it take to get onto a boat? Well, if Ophiel simply zapped them there, it would be less than a second. However, modern-day security is rather more advanced than Ophiel appreciated and the guards and compulsive ticket-checkers on any decent ocean liner nowadays would expose the soul-hunters sooner than later.  
So, they needed tickets, right? Or good hiding skills and a brush-up on ‘How to Lie and Have People Believe You.’ Given what they had seen so far of the girls, Ophiel opted for the first option. That mean that the angel would need to find a travel agency somewhere. Hotel lobbies were, in Ophiel’s admittedly limited experience, usually well-stocked with travel pamplets and the like. Judging by the receptionist’s previous behavior, they figured it wouldn’t be difficult to get information on the next cruise setting out from the Bay.  
Ophiel remembered to collect one of the key-cards from Maggie’s room before leaving. They found it set crookedly on the bedside table. The angel picked it up, left the bedroom, and removed themself to the hall. They were alone in the hallway until they made it to the elevator, where a tall, muscular man in a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows stood with his hands in his pockets, eyes focused on the crease between the wall and the carpet. The man looked up when Ophiel walked over, gave them a somewhat confused cursory glance, then resumed his inspection of the baseboards. Ophiel attempted to make eye contact, but was denied.  
The elevator dinged, and the two stepped aside as an older couple stepped out, the two women clutching iced Starbucks coffees in their veined hands. The one smiled at Ophiel and the other wrapped her arm around her wife’s shoulders.  
The receptionist was still seated behind his desk, cool, platinum gaze skimming the pages of a 19th century mystery novel with the cover wrapped in brown paper. He turned the page, reading about the detective’s trials with getting the town whore to speak to him while simultaneously struggling with his own attraction to her. The brown paper covering crinkled slightly as he adjusted his grip on the book.  
Ophiel walked up to the receptionist’s desk and began pulling different travel brochures out of their respective plastic containers. They turned the brochures over, looking for ones that featured cruises, and found most of them unsatisfactory in that department. The ones they discarded were set willy-nilly on the black marble desk before them and the receptionist found himself more and more distracted by the ever-growing pile of uninteresting travel brochures.  
“Sir, can I help you?” The receptionist asked, setting his book down with the pages open so as not to lose his place. Ophiel glanced at the receptionist, then continued their search.  
“No, thank you.”  
“Alright,” the receptionist said, nearly slipping for a moment from his cool persona while watching the angel narrow their eyes at a stock photo of a woman and a man frolicking on a beach. “Let me know if you need anything.”  
“Mm.”  
The receptionist watched Ophiel for a moment more, then turned back to his book. The plot was thickening with regard to the prostitute and the receptionist – whose name was Alan, by the way – was very intrigued. He immersed himself in the book and forgot about the strange person rifling through the brochures.  
The strange person was, in fact, quite frustrated at this point. They had been unable to find a single cruise trip advertised within the next week. Obviously, they couldn’t stay here forever, and angels cannot control time. Ophiel narrowed their eyes at yet another tropical beach house vacation, then slapped it on top of the pile on the desk.  
“Excuse me,” they addressed the receptioninst, having gone through each and every travel brochure available. “Do you know of any cruises leaving today?”  
The receptionist looked up, setting his book on his knee. “Today? No, I’m sorry. The earliest I’ve heard of one leaving is in a month.”  
He did look apologetic, Ophiel thought, frustrated.  
“Can I help you find an agency?” The receptionist offered.  
“No, thank you. I will be fine,” Ophiel refused darkly. They began replacing the brochures, setting each one in its proper plastic container in the rack. The receptionist told them they didn’t need to do that, that he could take care of it, but Ophiel insisted. They felt a little bad about messing up the nice display, and it really wasn’t as if it took forever: there were about twenty brochures, max.  
“Oh,” blurted Ophiel, turning back to the receptionist. “Do you have any computers?”  
Alan smiled coolly and pointed to the conference room that led off of the ground floor hallway.   
“There are a couple in there,” he said.   
Ophiel thanked him.  
“Yep.”  
The angel opened the door to the conference room and took a brief look around. There were three desks against each of the three walls, excluding the one with the door. Each desk was stocked with an older-type laptop, probably built around 2009, a variety of stationary, and a landline phone with a notepad beside it. A latina woman with her hair in a scarf was sitting at the desk by the right wal and speaking quietly on the phone about some investments she was purchasing.  
Ophiel selected the desk against the left wall. They sat down and pressed the ‘Shift’ key a couple times to wake up the laptop. They didn’t really remember which websites were trustworthy, reliable, or even accurate, but they figured a general search engine search would do the trick. The search, done on Google, since it was the first to pop up, returned about twenty-five million results. Ophiel sighed and continued their search.  
Maggie, though swimming in a sea of pillows and blankets, woke up in a cold sweat. She had had a bad dream, but she couldn’t remember it. All she knew was that she really wanted cheesecake.  
What?  
Maggie groaned and scraped her hands across her face. She needed to use the toilet but her bed was so warm. Ugh. Nature beat comfort and she slid groggily out of her bed, bare feet shuffling across the carpet. She tried to be quiet and opened the door slowly; she wasn’t sure if Emma was asleep.  
Taking a quick peek into the kitchen slash sitting-room area, Maggie saw her friend draped in the fluffy comforter and smiled. She made her way to the bathroom.  
About half an hour later, Ophiel had finally found a dinky little site, composed entirely in blocky looking HTML, that was advertising cruise tickets for a hundred dollars each, leaving tonight at nine pm. Ophiel dialed the numberl isted and watied for the man – a Mr. Harvey Washington – to pick up.  
Click.  
“Hello, this is Harvey speaking.”  
“Hello,” responded Ophiel. “I was wondering if you were still selling tickets for the cruise going out tonight?”  
“Oh, sorry, lady,” Harvey said, mistaking Ophiel’s high voice for that of a woman’s. “I’ve just cut off sales yesterday.”  
There was a beat of silence, then Harvey’s voice sounded out, a little more tentatively.  
“Uh, how many tickets were you planning on buying?” he asked.  
“Three.”  
“Well – I might be able to get you something.”  
“Oh, thank you,” said Ophiel gratefully. “How will I pay you?”  
“With cash, I suppose.”  
“Should I bring it with me to the boat or pay you before hand or…?” Ophiel’s voice tilted up, leaving the question open-ended.  
“Yeah, you can bring it when you come on the boat,” Harvey assured the angel pleasantly.  
“Okay. Three-hundred dollars, correct?” Ophiel’s voice became more pleasing to the ear, like a sweet syrup is to the tongue, as they tried to secure a cheap ticket.  
“Well, now –“ Harvey started, trying to begin bargaining for a higher price.  
“It’s so kind of you to let us three poor tourists go on such a beautiful cruise with you,” Ophiel crooned, their honeyed tones not lost on Harvey, who sighed softly and relented.  
“Yeah, well,” he said. “None of th elocals like cruises much, anyway.”  
“Really? I would think it would be a popular activity in the warmer months.”  
“No, not really. Locals know better, and, besides, most of the ones who like to go out on the water have their own boat.”  
“Hm. Interesting.”  
“Yep,” Harvey replied, drawing out the vowel in a distracted manner. “Oh, and before I hang up – what should I put your name down as, Ms.?”  
“Um,” Ophiel tought for a moment. “Mary. Mary Jefferson.”  
“Alright, Ms. Jefferson – or should I call you Mary?”  
Ophiel smiled slightly to themselves at the hints of flirtation present in Harvey’s voice. If only he knew who he was really speaking to, the angel thought.  
“Mary is fine.”  
“Okay. Good – I mean, I’ll see you tonight, then?”  
“Yes.”  
“And three-hundred dollars for you and the other two tickets. Hustband and kid?” Harvey added tentatively.  
“No, two girls.”  
“Ah. Yours?”  
“My – sister’s.”  
“Oh, okay.”  
“Yes . . . nine o’clock?”  
“Yes – yes. See you then, Ms. – Mary.”  
“See you then.”  
Click.  
Ophiel scrawled a quick note on the pad beside the phone reminding themselves of the dock’s address, the time of departure, and the cost of the tickets. The angel then got up and left the conference room and the latina woman, who was still haggling over the investments. Ophiel passed the receptionist and smiled when he looked up, then got on the elevatorto go up to floor six.  
Maggie was sitting on her bed, the television turned on to some CSI-type show on the local news channel. Because she didn’t want to accidentally wake Emma up, she only had the volume up to about a six or a seven and it was difficult to make out precisely why the girlfriend had taken her baby three states away from the boyfriend and called the cops when he had shown up, confused, at her door.  
Not that it was super important, but Maggie was bored.  
She wondered idly what Amy was doing and if they had ever gotten their pop-tabs unstuck. That was funny, she had to admit, and Emma had pulled it off flawlessly. Maggie wondered whether she could try summoning the demon again. She’d have to be quick, given that Ophiel would almost certainly not appreciate a demon hanging around the hotel room.  
Maggie double and triple-checked that the door and windows were shut, then sat back down on the bed and, hopefully, called out to Amy.  
“Amy?” Her voice sounded juvenile to her ears. “Are you there?”  
The silence magnified the sound of her heart beating. Maggie tried to reassure herself by supposing that Amy was just busy. She also pointedly ignored the voice in her head that was asking why on Earth she was trying to find comfort with a demon instead of with the angel that was probably just down in the lobby.   
Maggie called out again, closing her eyes and concentrating on the face of the demon she’d met last night.  
“Amy,” she entreated softly. “Can you come? I need your help.”  
Yet still nothing happened. Maggie would have gone and woken up Emma – because, who knows, maybe holding hands in a circle has something to do with it – but she felt bad about how tired her friend was. She sat on her bed and waited.  
Down in Hell, Amy was having a heated conversation with another demon, Dalmaken, who was in the middle of – very wrongly, mind you – accusing Amy of stealing one of Dalmaken’s souls to pu tin her own lineup and get ‘extra credit.’  
“For the last time, Dal, I didn’t steal your d--- soul!” Amy glared fiercely at the taller demon who stood, eyebrows raised accusingly, before her.  
“Then where is it?” Dalmaken asked quietly and pointedly.  
“I don’t know, have you checked your pockets?”  
Amy’s sarcasm was unappreciated.  
“Amy, I could get staked for this,” Dalmakedn said sourly. “It’s serious.”  
“I know; I’m not stupid. I just think you should look around a bit before accusing perfecly innocent people of stealing souls.”  
“You’ve done it before.”  
“And I’ve changed,” Amy asserted hotly. “I don’t do that anymore.”  
Dalmaken stared at her, trying to decipher the keys to the universe, apparently, judging by how intense his gaze was. Amy stared back hard, unblinking.  
“Fine,” Dalmaken relented. “But let me know if you see anything or – hear anything.”  
“I will, don’t worry,” Amy promised him. She and Dalmaken usually got along fairly well, but he had had several infractions filed against him and the punishments he would face for a relatively minor misdemeanor were about triple what Amy would face. She smiled at him reassuringly. “I hope you find it.”  
“Yeah,” agreed Dalmaken, somewhat crumpled in demeanor. “Me too.”  
“What was its name again?”  
“Uh,” Dalmaken thougth for a moment. “Chesterfield. Leonard Chesterfield.”  
“Okay. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”  
“Thanks.”  
“Yep.”  
Amy walked back to her post. She and Lil had a date planned for that night and she was excited to give her girlfriend the bouquet of freshly picked Red Daisies she had found growing along the walk to her house. As Amy stood behind her desk, she noticed her phone was blinking with several voicemails. Thinking they were form her superior, she grumblingly played them, surprised when, instead of the hissing voice of Ishgaal, she instead heard the pleading yet assertive voice of – Maggie?  
“Oh, boy,” Amy murmured as she listened to the girl implore her to come and help out with some problem. “What can be the matter?”  
She listened to all four of the voicemails, feeling guilty when she heard Maggie say that “this was all stupid.” Then again, she was a little confused about why Maggie was asking her for help after literally meeting her yesterday. Still, she figured she should show a little kindness here. She liked the girls.  
Maggie had stopped trying to contact Amy andhad sat on her bed, staring at the wall. She had heard Ophiel come back and go into the master bedroom, so she wasn’t even going to dare contacting the demon again. She was surprised, therefore, when the familiar darkening of the room rumbled through and a soft black cloud swirled about three inches off of the floor.  
“Amy!” Maggie cried, seeing Amy’s petite figure rising from the smoke.  
“Hey, cupcake,” Amy grinned. “What’s the sitch?”  
Maggie narowed here eyes. “Are you wearing lipstick?”  
“No! Well – yeah, but – just a little. I’ve got a date with Lil tonight.”  
“Ah. I see.” Maggie let a sly grin slip onto her face.  
“Shut up.”  
Maggie just winked at her. Amy huffed.  
“What did you call me for?” she asked, cocking her one hip to stand more comfortably. “You sounded worried.”  
“Oh, yeah, well,” Maggie faltered. “We’re basically hanging out with this angel now, and he’s a bit of a –“   
The word tool died on Maggie’s lips as she saw Amy’s eyes bug out nearly two inches from her head.  
“There’s an angel here?” the demon hissed, looking around wildly. “Why didn’t you tell me?!”  
“I just did.”  
“Maggie!” Amy whined. “Come on! Which one is it? Did they give you their name?”  
“Uh, he said he was Ophiel,” Maggie said, uncertain all of a sudden.  
“Ophiel?”  
“Yeah?”  
Amy cursed softly. “Great. I need to leave.”  
“But –“  
“Maggie,” Amy interrupted. “Angels and demons don’t mix. Plus, the last time I saw Ophiel I nearly smote their head off.”  
“You’ve met him before?”  
“I’ve met them before, yes. Angel’s don’t have gender. But yeah, they’re one of the ones that checks up on us demons every now and again.”  
“Oh. Well, couldn’t you just – I still need your help,” Maggie admitted.  
“I’m sorry,” Amy apologized. “But I really can’t stay for much longer. What’s your problem?”  
“We – Emma and I – accidentally took a soul out of Hell with us.”  
“You – wait. What did you say?”  
“A soul followed us out of Hell. That’s why Ophiel is here: to get the guy back.”  
“Oh, sweet. Dal is gonna love me,” Amy murmured. “Did Ophiel tell you the soul’s name? Do they know?”  
“It’s Chester, I think – or, Chesterfield. Something like that.”  
“Thank Satan.” Amy broke into a wide smile. “Do you know where he is?”  
“Chester?”  
“Chesterfield, yeah.”  
“Oh, no, we don’t. But we’re in the middle of trying to get him.”  
“Cool. Now, I really gotta split, but please let me know if you find this guy. I’ve got a friend who’s looking for him.”  
“Really?”  
“Yeah, and he’ll be in big trouble if anyone figures out he’s lost him.”  
“Oh.”  
“Yeah, well. Ciao, buttercup. Tell me if you find him?”  
“Of course,” Maggie assured the grinning demon before her.  
“Cool,” Amy breathed as she faded away. Maggie stared at the spot where she had been for a moment, then got up. She was going to go talk to Ophiel – or something like that.  
The angel was seated, cross-legged and sage-like, in the center of the bed. Maggie paused in the doorway, watching to see if Ophiel moved. They didn’t. Maggie turned away, shy all of a sudden, and shut the door.  
She walked into the kitchen and over to Emma. Gently pushing on her slumbering friend’s shoulder, Maggie attempted to wake her.  
“Em,” she said. “Em, wake up.”  
Emma hummed discontentedly in her sleep. Maggie shook her slightly.  
“Emma,” Maggie repeated with more vehemence.  
The sleeping girl sighed, then curved away from Maggie as she stretched her back.  
“What?” Emma grumbled hoarsely.  
“I need to talk to you. It’s important.”  
“Mmm…”  
“Emma, please?”  
“Fine,” Emma sighed. She rolled onto her back and rubbed her fists against her eyes. Blinking groggily, she looked at Maggie.  
“What is it?”  
“I talked to Amy,” Maggie began in a hushed voice, anxious about Ophiel overhearing. “She said one of her demon friends is looking for Chesterfield, too, and apparently she knows Ophiel.”  
“She knows him?” Emma sat up.  
“Them – but yeah, apparently she almost beheaded ‘em.”  
“What?”  
“I know.”  
“That’s crazy. What did Ophiel do?”  
“I don’t know, but Amy was sure nervous about meeting them.”  
“Man.”  
“Yeah, like – demon gossip.”  
Emma snickered at that. “Geez.” She pulled her knees up and Maggie sat beside her on the couch.  
“Does Ophiel know you talked to her?” Emma asked quietly.  
“Mm-mm.” Maggie shook her head. “And don’t tell ‘em, either.”  
“Tell me what?” Ophiel asked, stepping delicately into the room.  
“Nothing,” said Emma quickly. “Just – that I, uh, that I’m on my period.”  
The angel looked nonplussed. “Why? I could acquire you some sanitary products, if you require any.”  
“Oh, no, that’s fine,” Emma urged. “Really.”  
“Are you certain? I do not mind.”  
“No, really – I’m good.”  
Ophiel nodded. “If you change your mind, I am willing to help.”  
“Thanks.”  
Emma and Maggie watched as Ophiel wandered around to the kitchen and got a glass of water. They then came over and handed the glass to Emma.  
“Hydration is important,” the angel insisted, pressing the water more firmly into Emma’s surprised hand.  
“Yeah...” Emma eyed the water and smiled warily at Ophiel. “Thanks.”  
“You are welcome.”


	8. Why Prey Have Different Eyes Than Predators

Emma pulled Maggie up from her seat.  
“Come on, we gotta get there before the crowd!”  
“Ugh, fine,” Maggie grunted, following Emma reluctantly down the aisles of the auditorium. Jake was standing at the base of the stage beside all of the other presenters. Emma’s insistent hand in her own was a little annoying.  
“Jake! Hey – Jake!” Emma cried out to her brother. His head turned a little, eyes scanning the encroaching crowd for her short brunette head. Emma put a hand up and waved and Jake’s eyes caught her. He smiled.  
“Em!” Jake walked over to Emma and pulled her into a one-armed hug. “Hey! How’s it going? Did you like the presentation? My advisor said it was a little rushed towards the end, but I tried to compensate by fleshing out more details in the middle sections, you know? It was pretty fun to actually get to speak to people instead of, like, my mirror, right?”  
Jake babbled on.  
Maggie had her eyes trained on the third Philosophy student, the one who had spoken on Hell and had answered Maggie’s question about Lucifer. Maggie felt a twitching feeling like that of a white-hot grasshopper stepping delicately along the nape of her neck. Where was the guy going?  
Philosophy Student #3 – or, as his friends called him, Teddy John Garfield, Jr. – was a young man of average height, with blond hair and green eyes that were a little droopy at the edges, and his most distinctive facial characteristic was his eyelashes, which were long and black like a camel’s. He was dressed like all the other presentors in a cheap suit – blue or black, with a solid color tie and white button-down underneath – and brown loafers that clashed somewhat with the black belt that he had on. As Maggie scrutinized him, he reached into the inner breast pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a cell phone. Maggie found it interesting that he still used a flip-phone, some old Samsung thing with silver buttons that glowed blue when it was dark.  
“Hey, Ashley,” Teddy greeted his sister on the phone. “What’s up?”  
His sister had called to inquire about how his presentation had went and to remind Teddy to pick up his sweater from their parents’ house as soon as possible, as he had left it there last weekend accidentally and would probably want it sometime.  
“Yeah, okay, Ash – I – no, it wasn’t – I will, don’t worry… No, it went fine. Yeah, it was pretty easy, I only had two questions… Oh, from a girl and a kid, just – no, only like fifteen or something, I guess – oh, shut up… Yeah, and the other was from a – what? Oh, a kid, yeah –“ Teddy pushed open the door that lead from the auditorium to the hallway. He took several loping steps and headed into the main lobby, where he waved pleasantly at one of the security guards on duty and pushed out into the chilly air. His sister was telling him about their parents’ success at a local garage sale where his father had found old Aretha Franklin records and was elated. Teddy smiled and tilted his head up to look at the sky, Ashley’s voice running into his ear like honey.  
Emma tapped a friendly punch against her brother’s shoulder.  
“Hey, man, you did good,” she assured him, smiling. Jake ducked his head and bit his lip as he flashed his bucked teeth in return. Jake was always a huge nerd, in Emma’s opinion, but at least he was funny – sometimes, that is.  
“Hey, by the way,” Emma said, still straining somewhat to be heard over the crowd’s murmuring. “Who was that guy that was – what was it? Fourth? I don’t know, but he was talking about Hell. Maggie here was,” Emma glanced over her shoulder and found that Maggie was no longer standing behind her, “right here? Uh, hold on, Jake – “  
Emma turned around fully and searched the room, eyes hopping from person to person like a mosquito at a summer camp out. She couldn’t find Maggie, though.  
“Is something wrong?” Jake asked, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Did she leave?”  
“I guess. I don’t know.”  
“Okay, well, why don’t you go look for her? I’ll stay here and let you know if she shows up, okay?”  
“Yeah, thanks, Jake.” Emma shouldered her way through the crowd, soon disappearing amongst the other guests and becoming invisible to Jake’s gaze. He gave a quick once-over to the people around him, then bid his advisor good night and headed out into the lobby. He walked over to the security desk.  
“Excuse me, have you seen a girl – about seventeen, I think – with brown hair in, um, two buns?”

Emma walked past her brother in the lobby, not stopping to chat. She spotted Maggie outside, walking quickly away from the building. It was grey in the post-rain outside and Emma pulled Maggie’s cardigan tighter around her shoulders. Maggie was probably freezing out here, Emma thought.  
Maggie was, in fact, quite cold, but she didn’t stop to recognize the feeling as she trailed Teddy Garfield. Teddy was still on the phone with his sister and was speaking back to her now about some term paper he had due in several months and was planning the research for. Maggie walked on the stubbly grass beside the concrete sidewalk as she trailed him. She wouldn’t take any chances on his hearing her.  
“Yeah, so I was thinking I should give about a week or two for the outline – “ Teddy heard the scrape of a bush being pushed back against itself. He glanced around. “ – and then I was going to do about a month for the first draft. Do you think that’s too long?” Ashley gave some reply but Teddy wasn’t paying attention. He had turned around at this point and had seen someone – just a hint of a person, mind you – but someone nonetheless, and that someone was following him. He stepped slowly towards the corner of the building he had left where something was breathing in the shadows.   
“Hey, Ash – do you mind if I call you back? I’ve got to do some chatting up with these people, you know the whole deal – thanks. Bye – love you, too. Yeah. Bye.” Teddy hung up.  
His fingertips dragged against the rippling metal of the wall, catching drops of water left over from the rainfall. His heart beat sounded quieter than he had thought it would, given the expectations handed to him from the suspense novels he perused in his spare time. It was actually getting on quite a bit in the afternoon, his two-year-old wrist-watch flicking past 4:13 pm.   
Teddy clenched his fists in anticipation and rounded the corner.  
“Hey!” He cried out, spotting the tail end of a shoelace disappearing behind a high railing that separated the parking lot from the sidewalks. Teddy chased after it.  
“Hey!” He called out again. “Quit following me, creep!”  
He reached the railing and whipped his head around wildly, trying to spot whoever had been following him. His eyes pinched themselves around the bridge of his nose and he blinked away tears that were spawned from the chilly breeze. Teddy gave one last glance to the area, then hung his head and scoffed at himself.  
“This is stupid,” he admonished himself. He then brushed off the weird looks he got from several people who had seen his outburst and headed back to the building where he had presented that afternoon.  
Emma ran into Maggie, literally, about 500 yards away from the lobby entrance. Maggie was sprinting, face flushed and a hazy grin on her face, and didn’t spot her shorter friend as she rounded the corner. She had been trailing Teddy and had almost been spotted until she had ducked into the parking lot area and circled her way back here. Emma had nearly given up searching for Maggie out in the damp near-evening air and was just heading back to see if Jake had seen her friend when a solid mass collided with her cardigan-clad shoulder.  
“Oh! Sorry!” Maggie blurted, somewhat winded as she jolted to a stop beside Emma. “Emma?”  
“Maggie! I’ve been looking all over for you!” Emma pushed Maggie’s shoulder and led them away to the side of the building. The two girls leaned themselves against the wet metal sheets and huffed their steamed breath into the November air.  
“What were you doing?” Emma asked.  
“Chasing Mr. Hell-Presenter.”  
“Mr. Who?”  
“The Kool-Aid Man. No – the dude that presented on Hell, idiot,” responded Maggie caustically.  
“Geez, sorry,” Emma chafed. “Guess I can’t ask questions tonight.”  
“It’s not even night yet.”  
“Close enough. But why were you even chasing him? What are you now, a stalker?”  
“Maybe,” Maggie demurred.  
“Maggie, come on. Tell me why.”  
“I thought he might know something.”  
“Something like what? We’ve already heard every last scrap of info this guy has on the place. Geez – if he had anything else, he would’ve put it in his presentation.”  
“Not necessarily. People leave out stuff all the time.”  
“Like who?”  
“Like anyone. Maybe he just didn’t have enough time to talk about all of it.”  
“Okay, fine,” relented Emma. “So he knows something. So what? You just – chase him? How is that supposed to work?”  
Maggie shrugged, seemingly unconcerned with the finer details of her plan. “I’d have figured something out.”  
Emma scoffed. “Yeah, right. You’re plans are about as bad as the Percy Jackson movies, no offense.”  
“Offense taken.”  
“Okay, your bad.”  
“Geez,” Maggie whistled. “Take out the d--- map already, cupcake.”  
Emma jutted out her pink lower lip and fished the map out of her back pocket. “Here.” She thrust it into Maggie’s outstretched hands. Maggie unfolded it and rested one of her feet against the wall behind her, propping the map up on her knee. Noting their location, Maggie searched for the closest buildings that had been circled, crossed-out, or otherwise marked in some way. About a quarter-mile down the road there was a Supercuts hair salon with a bright green asterisk drawn over its center. Maggie tapped her finger over it to draw Emma’s attention.  
“What’s there?” Emma asked, leaning over to inspect the map more closely.  
“Hopefully our good friend Chesterfield.”  
Emma’s eyes darkened momentarily and she glanced away from the map to track the almost manic expression in Maggie’s eyes. Maggie looked at her and Emma looked away.  
“He can’t be far,” Maggie theorized. “We’ve just gotta find ‘im.”  
Emma nodded. “Yeah. Where did you say he was again?”  
“There.” Maggie pointed to the Supercuts. “Or anywhere marked here, really. But the asterisks mean high-probability, so – “ Maggie cut herself off.  
“Alright,” said Emma, swinging herself up off the wall. “Let’s check it out.”

Jake was inside, watching his sister walk away with Maggie. He knew they had met at summer camp and he didn’t really feal uneasy at all letting them hang out so much, even if it was a little weird how they lived in each other’s pockets half the time. Then again, he himself had had an obsessive best friend several years ago, before college. Jake’s phone vibrated in his jacket pocket and he pulled it out.  
Emma Lincoln [16:57 10/28]: Heading to supercuts w maggie be back some time  
Jake chewed at his lip. He glanced around the lobby; it was empty. His teeth slipped and he accidentally bit his tongue. Blood seeped into his mouth.  
You [16:58 10/28]: Ok stay safe

Maggie shivered. She didn’t want to take back her cardigan from Emma because Emma seemed to be ridiculously attached to the thing – and besides, who takes back a gift, anyway? – but it was getting chillier by the minute out here. The October was unusually brisk and most people walking along the sidewalks were clad in jackets or coats, with a few donning hats and gloves for the special occasion. Leaves clung stubbornly to trees despite the season and the sun finally released its hold on the sky, opting instead to dip down behind the hill and buildings before them. Shadows lengthened and Maggie tipped her head downwards, away from the breeze.  
“Are you cold?” Emma asked quietly. She eyed her friend.  
“No, I’m good,” Maggie lied.  
Emma slid her eyebrows closer together. “You sure?”  
“Yep.”  
“Okay.”  
They walked up to the Supercuts and pushed open the door, Emma holding it while Maggie stepped inside. Emma gave a quick glance around her before entering after Maggie and letting the door swing closed.  
“Hello, can I help you?” the woman up front asked. She was a young black woman with a short afro and violently purple nails.  
“Uh, yeah,” said Maggie, walking up to stand in front of the counter. The woman seemed wary of letting her get any closer and leaned a little ways back. “Can we, uh, can we use the bathroom?”  
The woman let her face settle into that expression of casual distaste that is so familiar on those who see so many different people each day.  
“Yeah, sure,” she told the girls, jabbing a thumb behind her at the hallway. “It’s back there.”  
“Thanks!” Maggie smiled at her. She and Emma walked past the woman and the people getting their hair cut at those weird chairs and into the hallway. It was darker than the rest of the place, with only two of those rectangular lighting fixtures in the ceiling and long-scuffed wooden flooring.  
“Okay,” started Emma, rubbing her palms together. “Let’s start. Which one’ll you take?”  
“Uh, I did the Men’s last time, so I’ll do Ladies’ this time,” Maggie said as nonchalantly as she could, shooting Emma a roguish grin as Emma recoiled somewhat.  
“Ugh, fine,” Emma huffed. “Go do Ladies’.”  
Emma pushed at the door to the Men’s room and walked inside. The lights over the sink hummed and pulsed as Emma watched them, her reflection blanched slightly in the mirror. She folded her arms and leaned her back against the wall, idly checking the time on her phone.  
Maggie, in the Ladies’ room, felt her pulse racing with anticipation. She stepped cautiously to the first stall door and pushed it open with the tip of her index finger. Wariness kept her from entering right away, but curiousity won over and she ducked into the stall, standing before the toilet with aprehension. She peered down into the watery depths.   
“Oi, Ugly!” She called, voice tremulous yet firm. “Come out, come out wherever you are...”  
Maggie heard her shallow breaths and the squeak of her wet sneaker on the tiled floor: the rest was silence.  
“D---,” she cursed quietly. “Where the f--- are you, you little son of a b---?”  
Maggie stepped out of the first stall and moved to the second. She pushed the door open with more confidence and stood over the toilet bowl with a certai amount of aplomb.  
“Ugly! Get your butt out here, pronto!”  
Still nothing. Maggie huffed.  
“Seriously?” she cried. “Dude, I know you’re in here!”  
She nearly blinked stars into her vision with how hard she was staring at the toilet bowl in all its unsanitary glory. She could have screamed in frustration. Instead, she moved to the third and final stall. She didn’t register the slight grime on the stall door or the bits of toilet paper underneath her shoes. Leaning over the toilet, she called out one last time.  
“Chesterfield, please, man. Get out.” Her voice was quieter now, though it hid more silent authority. She knew what she was doing.  
But it wasn’t enough: nothing happened in stall three, nor two, nor one. The bathroom was empty –   
The door opened.  
Maggie stumbled back out of the third stall and caught a glimpse of some woman walking into stall one and closing the door. Maggie mentally kicked herself. After washing her hands out of a sense of obligation, she left the bathroom. Hopefully Emma wasn’t having the same problem as she was.  
Emma, in fact, wasn’t having any problem – except boredom, that is. She, of course, hadn’t been standing over toilet bowls and shouting for a Lost Soul to come out, come out, whever it was; rather, she had been acting all cool and casual against the wall and counting the seconds until she could end the charade. Maggie knocked on the door and hissed at her.  
“Emma! Come out now!”  
Emma pushed up off the wall and ambled on out of the room.  
“Find anything?” she asked Maggie as she let the Men’s room door swing shut behind her. The scent of urinals was dismissed as they stood in the dim hallway, the snip-snip of hairdressers’ scissors cutting through the silence behind them, by the faint odor of hairspray and complementary candy-corn – ‘tis the season, after all.  
“No,” Maggie sighed. “Nothing.”  
“Aw, well, I’m sure we’ll find him eventually,” Emma assured Maggie, rubbing a pink-knuckled hand over Maggie’s shoulder-blade. “He can’t hide forever.”  
“Yeah. How many more spots do you think we can cover tonight?”  
“Oh, I don’t know – maybe three more?”  
“Only three?”  
“Well, I mean – school tomorrow.”  
Maggie and Emma had walked out of the Supercuts and were standing on the sidewalk beneath a rogue oak tree. As Emma said this, Maggie turned to her and fixed an incredulous look on her face: eyebrows and eyes pinched at the bridge of her nose and mouth opened and almost pouting. Emma fidgeted under her gaze.  
“Dude, I’ve actually gotta get good grades this semester, okay? Junior year is important,” she explained, feeling like she was making up excuses.  
Maggie just scoffed and turned away. “Alright,” she said, not deigning to give any more detailed a response than that. “Fine.”  
Emma felt guilty yet couldn’t deny the flood of relief that washed over her and bloomed a tiny smile in her cheeks.   
Maggie had her hands fisted in her pockets and was trying to ignore the now-biting chill at the end of her nose. She blinked absentmindedly at the cross-walk sign that was flashing a red hand at her face. Suddenly, she felt a warm swoosh of cloth cover her bare arms. She turned to see Emma, decardiganed, fixing the settle of the sweater over Maggie’s shoulders. Maggie slid her hands out of her pockets and into the sleeves of the sweater.  
“Thanks,” she mumbled.   
Emma smiled.  
“Yeah, sure. ‘S’not mine, anyway.”  
Maggie bumped her shoulder against Emma’s. “Let’s go find a good light.”

The next good light was in a Five Guys’. Emma and Maggie grabbed a couple of seats and Emma pulled out the map again.  
“Alright, where’s the next stop?” she asked as Maggie crossed out the Supercuts with a dark blue pencil.  
“The library,” Maggie proclaimed, stabbing the map with the blunt end of the pencil. “But it’s not a real hot-spot.”  
“So why are we going?”  
“Because the next closest place is in Squirrel Hill.”  
“Oh. Uh… so, wait a minute – what’s that?” Emma tapped lightly at a building two blocks over from where they were that was circled in pink. “Isn’t that, like, a number two hot-spot?”  
“Yeah,” Maggie admitted, slightly ashamed at having overlooked that location. “It is.”  
“So, why don’t we hit there, then the library, then call it a night? Sound good?”  
“Yep. Thanks for pointing that out.” Maggie smiled sheepishly. “Would’ve sucked to have missed it.”  
“Hey, man, it’s fine,” Emma assured her. She collected the map and folded it back up, tucking it into her back pocket again. Maggie stood up, the feet of her chair screeching against the floor.  
They pushed out again into the chilly night air, the stars having just peeped out. There weren’t many of them visible this deep into the city, yet Emma found herself unable to resist tilting her head up to gaze at them as they walked slowly from crosswalk to crosswalk.  
Maggie noticed Emma looking at the stars and paused her stilted stride.  
“Mm,” she hummed. “It’s pretty out tonight.”  
“Yeah,” Emma agreed, a soft smile resting on her face like a peony petal. Maggie felt herself drawn towards Emma and she linked their arms together at the elbow. Emma turned towards her and raised her eyebrows a fraction of an inch. Maggie just blushed and walked forwards, ashamed, as always, for her affection.


	9. Mind-Melding Isn't As Fun As It Looks On TV

Maggie was sitting on the couch, beside Emma, with Ophiel standing behind them. The angel had their hands on each of the girls’ heads, long fingers just brushing the tips of their ears. Maggie tried to keep from fidgeting and was biting at her lip nervously. She glanced at Emma.  
Emma wasn’t very thrilled about having Ophiel rooting around in her mind for kicks. She had her lips pursed tightly and was staring hard at the opposite wall. If there was a way they could have gotten through this while avoiding the Vulcan voodoo stuff, Emma would have leapt at the chance. However, Ophiel hadn’t offered any alternate treatment options and Emma seemed stuck with this crap. Oh, well.  
“Calm down,” Ophiel instructed, fingertips rustling around in Emma’s hair. “You are nervous unnecessarily.”  
Emma frowned slightly. “Sorry,” she grunted. The angel’s fingers rubbed around her temples.   
“How long is this going to take?” Maggie asked uncertainly.  
“About three hours for each of you,” Ophiel replied softly, their high voice milky in the tense air.  
“Oh. Great.”  
Emma patted Maggie on the knee in silent reassurance. Ophiel’s palms fixed themselves just over the crown of each girl’s head.  
“This will not hurt,” Ophiel told them. “I will begin with Maggie.”  
Maggie inhaled sharply. The air around her didn’t exactly turn cold, but she had this thought nagging at the back of her mind that she couldn’t really feel the warmth anymore. Where Emma’s elbow had brushed against hers, sending a flush of heat to Maggie’s arm, there was now only a dull recognition of touch without any of the physical sensation. The lights appeared to be dimming as well.  
Without turning her head, Maggie found herself able to see around herself, then was suddenly aware that she was staring at herself outside of herself. What a headache. Her eyes blinked at herself as if in a mirror, yet when she raised her arm to see if she could see it, she found there was only one form that responded. Though she could see outside of herself, she didn’t really leave herself.  
From her position in front of her body, Maggie was able to lock eyes with Ophiel. The angel had their mouth crimped in an uncomfortable smile and lowered their forehead in a short nod. Maggie opened her mouth but couldn’t find words to speak. She left the air empty.  
“Do you remember?” Ophiel asked, voice tinny in Maggie’s disconnected ears. It sounded as if the angel was speaking from across a large chasm. Maggie grasped at the faint bits that were audible and felt her brain working laxer than usual as she tried to comprehend the simple question.  
I don’t know, she thought. The words echoed in the space around her like bubbles, louder than Ophiel’s words yet still muffled somehow. Ophiel seemed to hear them, though.  
“Try,” they instructed, tracing little circles on Maggie’s temples. “Take yourself back to the moment.”  
Maggie didn’t even blink and the room was gone – couch, carpet, and Emma. Ophiel still had their hand held out where Emma’s head should be but the girl herself was invisible, or possibly not even there. Maggie didn’t have the guts to try and find out. In the place of the hotel room was the cabin and Maggie found herself flush with memories and a nearly painful desire to return. She turned around and saw the room from all angles.  
The beds were there, the pile of dirty clothes Maggie had stacked next to her suitcase was there, the cracked mirror was still dully reflecting the moonlight – wait, Maggie caught herself. Moonlight? She moved to the window and peered out, seeing a faintly visible starry sky. The cabins around them weren’t making any noise; not even a cricket could be heard in the still night. Maggie turned around and suddenly she wasn’t alone with the angel: she saw another version of herself and Emma, sitting on the bed together and looking at a Ouija board between them.  
“I hope you know this is absolute garbage,” Maggie heard herself say. Emma responded with something but Maggie couldn’t hear it. Her lips moved in silence.  
“Have you ever tried an intention ceremony?” Maggie – the Maggie on the bed, that is – asked Emma. The Maggie that was noncorporeal watched as she shoved the Ouija board out of the way.  
This is too early, Maggie thought. There won’t be any chance of the lost soul showing up yet.  
Ophiel looked faintly troubled, then nodded again. “If you are certain.”  
I am.  
The scene changed once more and Maggie found herself just as unprepared as the previous time. The whole experience was giving her a wicked case of nauseau.  
Could you warn me or something next time? She griped to Ophiel.  
“I apologize,” they crooned. “Try to find him, please.”  
Maggie sighed – or would have sighed if she had any form at the time – and looked around herself again. The cabin was empty now and – wait, something was happening: a dark circle was opening up in the cabin floor just underneath where Maggie was looking. She peered down and saw Emma and herself climbing out with Amy just a couple steps below them. Emma crawled up first, and Maggie saw herself lingering.  
“He will be near,” the angel said. Maggie turned to glare at him yet realized that it would be useless.  
I got it, dude, chill, she thought. Ophiel simply smiled again.  
Maggie tried to get lower down and peer into the Pit below her. She could see herself and Amy talking. Far, far below them was a demon haranguing a group of souls further into the depths of Hell. Amy cast a glance down to them then looked back at Maggie. They said something to each other, then Maggie started climbing up out of the hole, coming right into where Maggie’s noncorporeal form was located. She gave a glance around and shivered, then stood up.  
I can’t see anything, the Maggie who wasn’t quite there said.  
“Keep looking,” instructed Ophiel from behind her.  
There’s no point; there isn’t anything there, dude.  
“Please.”  
Maggie-of-the-past rubbed at her neck and climbed into her bed. Emma was already asleep. Maggie-of-the-future got one last stare down the hole when it closed up, right over where her nose would have been, had she been in her body at the time.  
Oh, crap, she whined. What am I supposed to do now?  
“Look,” said Ophiel, and Maggie was just about to turn around and tell him what for when she caught sight of something slipping past her face and out the window where a slight breeze ruffled the leaves of the tree just outside. Maggie-of-the-future stood up.  
What was that? She asked, standing and peering out the window at the moonless night.  
“I do not know exactly,” admitted Ophiel. “Though I would assume it was Mr. Chesterfield.”  
Oh. Oh.  
Maggie stumbled over to the door, finding the fact that she stepped right through the beds quite disturbing, and ripped it open, looking around wildly in the dark to see if she could spot anything. All she could see was a bird calmly sitting on the edge of the roof above her.  
Great, she said, walking back into the cabin with Ophiel. He’s gone. Now what?  
“Did you see where he went?” the angel asked, swiping one of their fingers over Maggie’s forehead like a freaking massuse or something.  
No, she grunted, feeling suddenly like she had a migraine coming on. Are we done yet?  
“Yes,” said Ophiel, much to Maggie’s delight. “Come back here.”  
Maggie walked over and stood in front of the angel.  
“Closer,” they told her.  
Maggie stepped closer, just about nose-to-nose with Ophiel now.  
“Walk into me,” Ophiel said.  
What? Are you crazy? Maggie asked.  
“Maggie, please,” Ophiel chided.  
Fine. Maggie stepped forward, squinting in expectation of a collision. Yet there wasn’t any: the scene dimmed a third and final time and Maggie found herself blinking at the wall opposite where she was sitting, with Emma’s arm brushing against hers and the hotel room surrounding her.  
“Whoa,” she breathed, coming fully back to herself. “That’s weird.”  
“Thank you,” the angel said. “Are you ready, Emma?”  
“Uh – yeah?” Emma blurted out, startled. “What were you doing? You looked like you were going into shock or something...” Emma’s eyes were wide as they stared into Maggie’s.  
“What? Oh, I – I think I went back in my memories or something. It was weird. Like, drugs weird.”  
“Huh.” Emma appeared wary. “Great.”  
“Takes a strong stomach,” Maggie commented with a dry smile.  
“Emma, are you ready?” Ophiel asked, seemingly eager to interrupt Maggie’s description of the mind-meld or whatever it was.  
“Yeah, yeah, whenever you are,” Emma assured them, biting at the edge of her lip and glancing at Maggie. Maggie smiled at her and patted her knee.  
“You’ll be fine.”  
Emma started to smile back, then her eyes turned glassy and her mouth fell open. Maggie watched as Emma’s head slowly turned to face forwards. Suddenly, Emma jolted forwards and hung down between her knees.  
Emma found herself on the stairway out of Hell. She felt herself move forward and saw herself climbing up – but wasn’t moving. Holy crap, she thought. What is going on?  
“You are reliving your memories,” Ophiel’s soft voice informed her. “Be patient and watch for the Lost Soul.”  
How did you hear that? Emma swung around and saw Ophiel literally floating off the side of the staircase, just behind where she was. She felt dizzy.  
“I am in your mind as well,” the angel said, his hand held out over two blank spaces where, supposedly, their heads were located.  
Okay? Okay. Okaaaay, Emma repeated, trying to wrap her mind around all of this at once. What am I – how?  
“It is not important. Please look for Mr. Chesterfield, Emma.”  
Chesterfield, Chesterfield. Emma peered around herself. She noticed Amy and Maggie standing on the staircase for a couple minutes after she herself had already climbed up and into bed. She looked down, far down, into the depths of Hell. Really, she couldn’t see much, but the tiny little red dot was ominous enough to suggest anything.  
Then, just as she was about to turn back around, she noticed a little, grey, waifish figure speeding up towards her. She pulled her head back just as it zoomed past her, and as she craned her noncorporeal form to see up into the cabin room just as the figure and Maggie collided as the latter crawled out of the portal. Emma watched as Maggie shivered slightly, then rubbed the back of her neck and crawled into bed, the grey figure looming behind her in the dark. Emma let out a tiny breath.  
If this was the Lost Soul, then A) what was it doing to Maggie – had it done to Maggie, that is – and B) how were they supposed to find something that looked like a nearly invisible shadow? Emma turned around and saw Ophiel smiling at her.  
“Come here,” the angel told her. Emma stepped closer, reluctant to move her form off of the ledge of the staircase. She glanced down, seeing how far the fall would be, as Amy brushed through her without noticing and stepped, without caution, farther down into her demonic abode.  
“Closer.”  
Emma pulled her gaze away from the flickering lights in Amy’s hair and regarded the angel floating before her. She stepped closer, moving off of the ledge. Had she been standing, she would have fallen, and the thought made her slightly nervous. Ophiel nodded slightly at her and she moved ever closer, and then, just as quickly as it had disappeared, the room was back and Emma was swallowing down a sickly feeling of wholeness that was, contrary to reason, wrong. She gasped and crumpled forward like a piece of wet cardboard.  
“Are you okay?” Maggie asked, dark eyes curious as she bent to look at Emma.  
“Yes,” breathed Emma. “Yes, I’m okay.” She blinked a few times, hard.   
“Don’t ever do that again,” Maggie told Ophiel harshly, twisting to look the angel in the face. Their silver eyes were blank and Maggie wasn’t sure if Ophiel was even listening to her.  
“Hey!” She barked at them, jaw strutting forward like it owned the place. “Don’t do that again, creep.”  
The life dropped back down into Ophiel’s eyes; they widened and focused on Maggie’s pinched face.  
“I will not,” Ophiel stated. “It is no longer necessary.”  
Maggie scoffed, turning to share an incredulous look with Emma. “Oh, so you’ll respect my wishes just because it isn’t necessary to violate them? What kind of answer is that? Have you ever heard this phrase, Ophiel – it’s real simple, don’t worry – it goes a little like this: ‘no means no.’ Learn it. I just said ‘no’ to you, got a problem with that? Huh? No, Emma I mean it, this guy is – their weird, okay? I’m sick of all this crap that we’ve put up with. Why do you need to – enter our minds – or whatever, if you’ve already figured out where Chesterfield is? Like, seriously? Did you just do that for fun? Come on, man, I asked you a question, the least you could do is, like, nod your head or something.”  
Ophiel’s head was tilted back and to the side as they regarded Maggie in her tirade. “I did not.”  
“Didn’t what, specifally?”  
“Do it ‘for fun,’” Ophiel specified.  
“Oh.” Maggie deflated, though only slightly. “Why did you do it, then?”  
“Because I thought it might be useful to know what Leonard Chesterfield looks like,” the angel deadpanned.  
Maggie’s fire had just been quenched. She sucked her lips in, lowered her gaze, and raised her eyebrows; Emma hadn’t ever seen her look more embarrassed.  
“Sorry,” Maggie muttered. Ophiel smiled tightly in a dismissal of the apology, then turned around and walked in front of the couch where the girls were sitting.  
“We are leaving in several hours,” they said, sitting down on the love-seat across from the couch. “Please be ready. Until then, it would be wise to rest.”  
“Where are we going?” Emma asked, massaging her temple with her fingertips. “Back to camp?”  
“No,” Ophiel told her. “We are going on a cruise. I have arranged for the tickets to be paid for when we board the ship. It is owned by a Mr. Harvey Washington, and from what I heard on the phone, he seems like a reasonably nice fellow.”  
Maggie and Emma shared a look.  
“You called some guy up and he just happened to have cruise tickets?” Maggie queried in disbelief. “You gotta be kidding me.”  
“I am in perfect sincerity,” the angel assured her, shaking their head. “Mr. Washington owns a boat and takes people out for two days and one night. I arranged for us to leave tonight at nine pm.”  
“Okay,” Emma mumbled, confused. “But we don’t have any clothes or – I need to shower, like… soon.”  
“Yeah, me too,” Maggie agreed.  
“D--- straight,” Emma taunted and grinned at Maggie, who punched her lightly on the shoulder.  
“Ah, shut up,” Maggie scoffed.  
Ophiel folded their hands neatly in their lap and watched the girls.  
“Rest,” they ordered, and the girls looked up at them – young, innocent eyes still wrapped with eyelashes that haven’t burned at the edges.  
“Now?” asked Maggie.  
“Now.”  
“A’ight,” Emma grunted, pushing herself up off the couch. “I call the bed by the window.”  
“Good, ‘cause I already got the other one,” Maggie said, standing as well.   
The girls headed into their bedroom and each flopped on their own bed. It wasn’t even four o’clock yet but they felt the wear of such a head-spinning day. Emma huffed into her pillow as Maggie wiggled her toes under the covers.  
“I’m beat,” Maggie stated simply, rolling over to look at Emma.  
“Same,” Emma said, words muffled by the pillow.  
The curtains were drawn and the room was grey and dim. They had an angel in the next room who would, presumably, watch over them. Fatigue welcomed them with petal-soft arms.


	10. You've Got No Sea-Legs, You Land-Lover

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ends incomplete. If you wish for me to add to it, please comment. I am more than willing, I just didn't see the need.

Ophiel had the note folded in their pocket. The folds were creased exactly and pressed with Ophiel’s fingernail. The scrape of the paper against the nail’s edge had reminded the angel of the rasp of breath just before injury. Dipping a finger into their pocket, Ophiel brushed the tip of the paper and recalled the details of the trip that were necessary to review. They had no qualms about Harvey Washington’s sincerity and trustworthiness, yet the girls had seemed so disquieted. They often were, Ophiel noted, around the angel themselves.  
It was not late and Ophiel had not bothered to track the progress of the shadows across the coffee table. By the time the shadows had just started to creep off of the table and onto the carpet, Ophiel noted that the time had ticked steadily on to seven o’clock. The girls had not stirred since removing themselves to their room and Ophiel was loathe to wake them, if they were sleeping. Though they would need food again at some point.  
The angel stood, their white robe falling down around them to the clink of the gold chains around the angel’s neck. Sunlight flickered in their hair and they almost seemed to be a source of light themselves. Stepping off of the carpet and onto the hardwood floor, their feet didn’t make a sound.  
The door to the girls’ room was closed and Ophiel would not be so improper as to open it without their permission, especially after their obvious mistrust of the angel. Standing in front of the door, toes nearly touching the baseboards, Ophiel strained their inhuman ears to hear anything besides the shift of air vents and water pipes inside the walls. They could just make out the muffled sighs of one of the girls as she turned over in her sleep. The angel retreated from the door, content to let their charges sleep.  
In the angel’s own room, the curtains were wide open and what was left of the sunlight came in a wave: covering the floor from wall to wall, glints of golden and silver light flickered off of the lamp and the door-handles. Ophiel walked in and stood as a candle in the center of the floor, gazing out over the city towards the bay. There was no point in readying for the trip, as the angel didn’t have any belongings besides what was draped over their shoulders and folded in their pocket. Besides, such frivolous concerns could not touch the angel’s peaceful mind; anxiety did not mar their consciousness.  
Yet still, Ophiel found themselves reiterating the complaints issued by the girls: Maggie’s uncomfortableness with Ophiel’s actions and Emma’s desire to bathe. The first problem would be easy enough to fix, given that Ophiel was in complete control of what they did and did not do; the second problem would be more difficult to solve, as the angel was unaware of any clothing they could procure at such short notice or what size the clothing should be, regardless of any stylistic concerns that Emma would likely have (every single other human Ophiel had assisted in such manners had expressed concerns of that nature and Ophiel assumed Emma would be similar in that regard).  
Ophiel picked up the complementary phone on the bedside table and sat down beside it on the bed. They held it up to their ear as they pressed eight for the front desk.  
“Hello?” a male voice responded, most likely Alan’s.  
“Hello,” Ophiel replied. “Do you have a list of clothing shops nearby?”  
“Um, yes, hang on a moment – I’ll get it.”  
Muffled sounds of Alan searching through several drawers came through the line. Ophiel waited patiently, staring blandly at the modern art piece on the wall. The phone was picked up again and Alan breathed into it for just a half-moment before speaking.  
“I have the list,” he said. “Was there any specific shop you were looking for?”  
“No. Whatever is available would work. Oh – but it needs to carry clothing for girls.”  
“Girls as in children or adults?” Alan asked, flipping through the list.  
“Between.”  
“You mean, uh, teenagers?”  
“Yes,” Ophiel cried. “That’s it: teenagers; I need clothes for girls who are teenagers.”  
“Okay – uh, just a moment.”  
Ophiel waited a moment.  
“I’ve got three possibles,” Alan said. “There’s a Gap store about five miles from here, an American Eagle about eight miles away, and a local store called ‘Tiffany’s Totally Tasteful Threads,” and that’s, um, just three miles from here.”  
Alan waited in silence as Ophiel considered the options. The angel couldn’t quite remember what was in vogue and what wasn’t, especially considering that they hadn’t actually been to Earth in about forty years.  
“You said that one was three miles from here?”  
“Yes,” Alan confirmed. “’Tiffany’s Totally Tasteful Threads.’”  
Alan sounded somewhat embarrassed saying the shop’s name and Ophiel couldn’t quite figure out why.  
“Is there something wrong with the shop?” they asked, suspicous.  
“No, no,” lied Alan hastily. “It’s fine, it’s just – the name, you know, sounds a little, uh, tacky.”  
“Tacky,” Ophiel repeated dryly.  
“Yeah, uh – nevermind. It’s a good store.”  
“Mm. How would I acquire transportation to there?”  
“The hotel has a shuttle, but I don’t know if that store is on the circuit. I could ask, if you want.” Alan lifted his voice at the end of the last statement, turning it into an open-ended question.  
“Yes, that would be wonderful, thank you,” Ophiel told him. “Do that.”  
“I will. What’s your room number, ma’am, by the way, just so I can call you back? It will take a moment to get the information.”  
“Room six six five.”  
“Okay. Thanks.”  
“No, thank you.”  
“Oh, you’re welcome – just the job.”  
“Yes.”  
Ophiel placed the phone back on the receiver.

Where Emma was sleeping, she could feel the faint impressions building on the side of her cheek from the pillow. Her dreams were of soft, faint things like dandelion seeds and cloud edges and the little bit of stuffing that sticks out of an old plush toy. She didn’t hear the door opening.  
A dark figure hovered overtop of Maggie’s bed. It was long, grey, and fuzzed at the edges. It reached a hand out and nearly brushed Maggie’s hair away from her face. Then, caught up in the ridiculousness of the situation, it chuckled quietly. Maggie stirred in her bed, eyelids fluttering and breath filling her lungs more quickly than it does in deep slumber.  
Maggie let her jaw slip open as she yawned, deep from within her chest. She arched her back with the movement and let some light slip through the cracks between her eyelids. Making out nothing in particular that caught her attention, she lowered her head back to the pillow and reached to pull the blanket over the hump of her shoulder, when she felt a cool breeze brush the tips of her fingers as they lingered on the bedspread.  
Pulling her eyebrows together, she opened her eyes and peered out at the room in its dimmed condition, shadows spiraling on the walls and ceiling. She couldn’t see anything unusual at first, then noticed a shadow lingering on her bed. She narrowed her eyes and saw the shadow rise to stand. Maggie gasped and sat up, tucking her knees up to her chest.  
The figure moved closer to Maggie as she pressed against the wooden headboard. She opened her mouth to call out to Emma and made out the first syllable of the girl’s name before the shadowy figure covered her mouth with a grey, wispy hand. Maggie felt faint.  
Emma flopped over onto her other side, her arm flung haphazardly over herself. She sighed as she awoke, scrunching her face up as her eyes opened.  
“Mm,” she groaned as her faculties returned to her. She blinked at Maggie’s bed, noticing that Maggie herself wasn’t in the room. Emma figured that Maggie had left to speak to Ophiel or use the bathroom or do some other menial task. After blinking several times to clear the fog from her brain, Emma slid off of the side of her bed, feet sinking in the carpet.  
She wrinkled her face with her hand, stumbled to the door, and hoped her clothes weren’t looking as disordered as they felt. She picked out a wedgie and straightened her shirt before opening the door and peering out into the hallway. Not hearing anything, Emma walked out and headed to the kitchen/sitting-room area.  
“Hey, Maggie?” she called out, stepping into the room. Emma looked around, noting the empty couch, love-seat, chair; the kitchen was barren of any and all life, whether human, celestial, or demonic. Emma turned around and left.  
“Ophiel?” As Emma knocked on the angel’s door, she noticed it hadn’t been closed all the way. She pushed it open with two fingers gingerly.  
“Ophiel?” she repeated, stepping into the room. The angel was standing in the center of the floor, staring at the ceiling, with their entire being alight in a golden near-sunset light. Emma paused for a moment, struck by the natural beauty of the creature before her. Then, she collected herself and remembered that it was weird and rude to stare at people after walking into their room without exact permission.  
“Uh, Ophiel?” Emma repeated a third time. The angel turned around and faced her, silver eyes alight with a hidden neon.  
“What is it, Emma?” They asked, translucent eyebrows curving skywards.  
“Do you know where Maggie is?” Emma fidgeted before the angel.  
“Is she not sleeping?”  
“No.”  
Ophiel’s face did not change much, though the life seemed to drain from their eyes and they stared unblinking at Emma as the girl became increasingly concerned.  
“Show me,” the angel told her at last. “Show me the beds.”

**Author's Note:**

> Again, if you want me to add to the story, just comment or something. Thanks for reading!  
> \- M


End file.
